poetry, politics

Poets for a Better Country

I just signed up to read at an open mic this evening in support of Obama:

Sun Oct 12: Chopin Theater, 1543 W. Division, presents Poets For A Better Country, part of a
national event also taking place in Pittsburgh, NYC, and Massachusetts. Tonight’s event features
Kim Berez, Ellen Wadey, Stephanie Gentry-Fernandez, Mary Hawley, Janine Harrison, CJ
Laity, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Sage Xaxua Morgan-Hubbard, Mike Puican, Gordon Stamper and
Erin Teegarden, plus a “mini cram” open mic. FREE / pass the hat for Obama. 7 PM.

It’s fun to be able to tag a post “poetry” and “politics.”

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books, Great October Reread, poetry, quotes

enough money to keep a chicken alive

Early in my life I determined not to teach because I like teaching very much. I thought if I was going to be a real poet – that is, write the best poetry I possibly could – I would have to guard my time and energy for its production, and thus I should not, as a daily occupation, do anything else that was interesting. Of necessity I worked for many years at many occupations. None of them, in keeping with my promise, was interesting.

Among the things I learned in those years were two of special interest to poets. First, that one can rise early in the morning and have time to write (or, even, to take a walk and then write) before the world’s work schedule begins. Also, that one can live simply and honorably on just about enough money to keep a chicken alive. And do so cheerfully.

This I have always known – that if I did not live my life immersed in the one activity which suits me, and which also, to tell the truth, keeps me utterly happy and intrigued, I would come some day to bitter and mortal regret.

– Mary Oliver, “Conclusion,” A POETRY HANDBOOK (Great October Reread of 2008, 1/90)

Having unpacked the ninety books I own, I have been rereading them, one at a time. I think I will make this a yearly tradition if I can, to at least open if not completely reread every book I own, and to quote from it on this blog. If I cannot find anything worth quoting or commenting on, or don’t care about the book enough, I will get rid of it. To this end, this post begins a new category, the Great October Reread. For my own facetiousness I will also note that I am not blogging about these books in the exact order of rereadership. I devoured ON BEAUTY first, and dipped into the Norton, and was browsing through CODEPENDENT NO MORE before I got to this one.

My mother gave me A POETRY HANDBOOK when I was in high school, and those words – particularly the “bitter and mortal regret” – have rung in my ears since then. I did not realize until now, on this reread, how seriously I have taken Oliver’s admonition to avoid interesting work – and how strangely guilty I feel for the interesting occupations I have pursued, such as directing, for diverting my energy from my truer, older calling. However, since she ultimately did become a teacher, I think I may safely say that I aspire to do the same, and sooner than her, without damage to the poetry.

I also think that it is safe, even necessary, to have interesting occupations as a writer, as long as they do not become preoccupations which prepossess the poetics. That will always be a danger, but for someone as desperately determined to write as Oliver was and is, it cannot be greatly feared. (I have been watching too much PRIDE AND PREJUDICE – I sound like plaigarized Austen. “Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride – where there is real superiority of mind…”)

We are all in danger from many things, Dara, Darcy, and every prideful person and poet on the planet. But let’s (and by us I mean me) not be in danger of letting the fear of that danger drive us to doing nothing.

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criticism, poetry, quotes

the poet might have been eaten by a shark

In his description of [Hart] Crane’s death, [biographer Paul] Mariani was attracted to the captain’s notion that the poet might have been eaten by a shark—”Did he feel something brush his leg, the file-sharp streaking side of concentrated muscle, before the silver flash and teeth pulled him under?” This is sheer moonshine, but a biographer’s fantasies—and gruesome fantasies they are—don’t mitigate the critic’s error of fact.
[…]
I once heard an undergraduate, a stack or two over in a faceless library, say plaintively, “What are you going to do about the Jesus in my heart?” What are you going to do about the poetry in my heart? If the critic were meant to offer solace, he would have taken up a different line of work.

– William Logan, “The Hart Crane Controversy,” on Poetry Magazine’s website.

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writing

our minds turn on us pretty quickly

Young writers think all they need is time, but give them that time and watch them implode. After all, there’s something basically insane about sitting at a desk and talking to yourself all day, and there’s a reason that writers are second only to medical students in instances of hypochondria. In isolation, our minds turn on us pretty quickly. I have two writer friends, successful novelists who could afford not to teach, who insist that rather than detract from their writing, their lives as professors are what allow them to write, and that given more free time, they would crumble. The job provides a safety net above the abyss of facing the difficulty of creating every day, making an irrational thing feel more rational.
[…]
I don’t know how long I can survive in captivity. For the time being I will continue to throw myself into teaching and try to take Stegner’s advice about the summers, while hoping my job doesn’t get in the way of my work. I do love teaching and recognize how lucky I am to be living for at least a part of each day in the real world, but while I try to be commonsensical, lately I have begun to feel something rising up inside me. A part of me misses the glee and obsession and even the anger. And a part of me worries that my work has become too professional, too small, and worries that I don’t spend as much time as I should reading or brooding or even fretting. Yes, my lifestyle is more healthful, but is health always the most important thing? The part that answers no to that question is now lying in wait, looking for ways to undermine my so-far-successful teaching career. In fact you could argue that that part of me had a hand in writing this essay, which I am finishing now, a few weeks before going up for tenure. After all, what would that part, my inner monomaniac, like more than to tear off his collar and sabotage the job that keeps him from running wild?

– David Gessner, “Those Who Write, Teach,” NY Times

I enjoyed the article very much but it seems to me that LeGuin and others would suggest that the idea of being able to focus solely on writing, without distraction, has always been an idea held by and for men.

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poetry, quotes, writing

thou art all my art

LXXVIII.

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee:
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.
-W.S.

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design, theater

standby, sound 1-3, lights 1.

This Guardian theatre blog entry from Maxie Szalwinska has four clips of sound designs from recent productions in England. You can listen to them at her post. It’s great to be able to hear some design from another country. She writes:

This increasing importance of sound in the theatre is, in part, down to new and improved technologies, but productions at the vanguard of sound design are as likely to be lo-fi as high-tech. And it goes hand in hand with the trend towards more immersive theatre, and cross-fertilisation between theatre, film and radio.

[…]

Gareth Fry, the visionary sound designer for Waves and … some trace of her says he is indebted to a book about Foley artistry called Noises Off written by the stage manager of the Old Vic theatre in 1936, which “details quite precisely how to create the sound effect of a steam train using 18 stage hands and garden rollers”.

(Created a “design” category with this post.)

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chicago, theater

I will need a suggestion from the audience…

Last night, I saw a show at Improv Olympic here in Chicago, in the Wrigleyville neighborhood, which reminded me of a touristy section of New Orleans. I went with an actress friend who takes classes there. We saw the 8 pm show, Revolver and the Deltones (an improvised musical group). The theater was packed – there must have been over a hundred people – and as we were leaving, a new group of people was coming in and buying tickets to the next show. They have two theaters which each play two shows a night, six nights a week. It’s effectively an improv rep. Coming from audience-starved Los Angeles, I was stunned and overjoyed. My friend and I stood outside waiting for the 22 bus down Clark Street to our respective east-west sub-streets, and this was our conversation: “I can’t believe it.” “I know.” “No, really, I can’t believe it.” “I know.” “No, really – ” “I know.”

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chicago, music, politics

The idea Palin comparison with…(I tried…)

I just discovered Jason Robert Brown’s weblog, and the news that he’s writing the music for a Kennedy Center symphonic adaptation of E.B. White’s TRUMPET OF THE SWAN, with playwright Marsha Norman. These are all such good things, and remind me that there’s a world beyond Sarah Palin.

As I discovered when I was elected one of the 3 writers for the Stanford Band’s halftime shows, in 2001, I’m not really a comedy writer. I’m a punnist, whether or not they’re funny. It’s all about how words sound. To this end, here’s the Palin Pun that I think of every time I hear her name:

Sarah Palin:
Parasailing.

(a moment of silence for the pun)

T minus ninety minutes to the debate. Biden my time. I’ll be watching it with Robert and Caitlin in their Ravenswood apartment, the same place where I saw Obama’s acceptance speech. I think we’ll all remember where we saw these events for a long time.

Yours in trepidation.

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quotes

it cannot be demanded

A writer has no use for the clock. A writer lives in an infinity of days, time without end, ploughed under.

It is sometimes necessary to be silent for months before the central image of a book can occur. I do not write every day. I read every day, think every day, work in the garden every day, and recognize in nature the same slow complicity, the same inevitability. The moment will arrive, always it does, it can be predicted but it cannot be demanded. I do not think of this as inspiration. I think of this as readiness.

– Jeannette Winterston, “A Work of My Own,” ART OBJECTS: ESSAYS ON ECSTACY AND EFFRONTERY

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chicago, location

Six-minus-five-degrees-of-separation

I unrolled myself from my second bus, and came in for a very well deserved drink after a day of simultaneous babywriting and grantsitting – no, wait – and I overheard two musicians at my cafe talking about a local independent record label, and I know the owner – I’ve met him twice. It’s a small community here. I knew who they were talking about. I was connected to someone who’s someone in the Chicago indie music community. That feels pretty good.

I’m coming to the end of my time as a nanny. I’ve been working part-time as a babysitter for an eight-month-old girl to help pay the bills. Between that and all this theatrical grantwriting, my income has finally caught up with my bills, and I’m able to stop that at the end of this week. It’s nice that just as that starts to happen, I start to feel like I know some of the artists here.

Babies are usurpers of metaphors. Today, the sky wants to rain but can’t, like a child that wants to go to sleep, but can’t. The windows on the bus are foggy, like they were in Denver. And I miss Los Angeles with all the teeth in my skull, but Chicago is pleasantly distracting. Again, like a child. It’s here, right now, so I suppose I have to pay attention to it.

I’m going to set up the back room of our apartment like a rehearsal room this weekend.

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