Peg Duthie's Blog, page 50

"All my life I have loved in vain / the things I didn't learn"

Today's subject line comes from Yehuda Amichai's The School Where I Studied, in the September 1999 issue of Poetry. Also from that poem:

I know all about the flowering of the tree of knowledge,
the shape of its leaves, the function of its root system, its pests and parasites...

But the issue I spent the most time with in the bathtub yesterday was the one from August 1999. I'd dogeared several pages in it during my first read-through, and added a couple more this time:

Dan Brown's Dream after Dream, a rhyming piece about revisiting childhood fantasies (specifically "major league imaginings" and about being a superhero)

In that issue, it's immediately followed by Carl Dennis's Glory, which wasn't overall a poem that moved me, but it had a couple of moments that grabbed me: the narrator's description of one of his failings as "the pleasure I took in being coddled / More than my brothers were by those who mattered" and the vivid visualization of a home movie played in reverse.

Jack Stewart's Ariel's Reply is about and to W.H. Auden, and has a killer opening: "If reading learned books / had been why Auden lost his looks / then Prospero would have died / by thirty-five." (Auden gets a shout-out in Christian Wiman's "A Piece of Prose" at the back of the issue, for being "an exemplary prose stylist," which in Wiman's terms means being "authoritative yet intimate" and fun to read. (A fun line of Wiman's own: "It's going too far to hope for a prose that could, like a poem, compel and even almost convince simply by the way it sounds, but I like a writer who at least tries.")

The Stewart poem I bookmarked 14 years ago was On the Church Marquee. This time, the lines I liked most were "the faint perfume / of furniture you've had for years."

Daniel Halpern's Careless Perfection loses steam for me as it goes on -- a problem with a number of not-even-all-that-long poems in this issue and elsewhere. It is probably me, and happens to be something I have become more conscious of since reading the current submission guidelines at Spillway, which is soliciting poems for its "long and short of it" theme through the end of this month. Anyway, Halpern's poem would have resonated more with me if it had ended after the second stanza. It's followed by Nature Lover's Lament, which made me cackle.

The Wiman essay I mentioned earlier is entertainingly opinionated, and devotes a fair bit of time to what makes a good reviewer. I'll have to spend more time with it later. In the meantime, here's the kind of passage that has me folding over the corners (and also reflecting on how times change -- reader response to online poetry/reviews has been a different animal, from what I've seen so far):

There are always those who are keen on accumulating "power" in the poetry world, and reviewing may be just one more means of doing so. One hardly knows what to say about this. Wielding power in the poetry world is roughly the equivalent of cutting a wide swath through your local PTA.

Public reaction may in the end be one of the strongest incentives, and not a base one. Poetry is lonely. Publish a poem in some conspicuous place and the response is not likely to be overwhelming, not even likely to be a response. Publish a review or essay that is at all partisan or passionate in that same place and you'll get some letters. One of these will be from someone who is clearly quite intelligent and thoughtful, and will be very gratifying. Another will come from someone you suspect has broken off from society, who likely wrote you while on a break from building his bomb shelter or foraging for dung beetles. And then you'll get the rare, cherished one that could go either way, like the letter I once received from some mad rancher down in south Texas who objected to a review I had written. "Christian Wiman!"he screamed in a letter to the editor. "What is this, a joke? Some sort of right-wing temperance group?" He meant Christian women, you see. I sent him a bottle of bourbon.

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"what answer, darling, could I think or give?"

Today's subject line is from Sandra M. Gilbert's February 11, 2003, which is one of several sonnets about love and loss in the September 2003 issue of Poetry. There seems to me more word- and form-play in this issue than usual -- another sonnet is Lisa Barnett's Love Recidivus ("the careful lives we have so far lived through..."). In James Kimbrell's poem about his West Tennessee psychic, he observes "how /she already knows / the sundry screwed up ways a day / can go days before / I park my wreck on the hill again beside / her white Mercedes," and later exclaims, "O non-refundable / life facts!" That cracks me up.

The other collection currently on my bathtub rim is Ernesto Priego's Not Even Dogs (Meritage Press, 2006), which I received as a comp(ensation) copy some time ago after writing some reviews for Galatea Resurrects. The poem I've found most striking so far is "It's always like this: no matter" (p. 51). While looking around to see if there was a copy of it online, I came across John Bloomberg-Rissman's reply to it. Garcia Lorca invocations for the win!

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"the right path, the answer to your questions..."

Re-read in the bathtub yesterday night: Peter Pereira's Anagrammer, in the September 2003 issue of Poetry (not sure why PF has it archived as February 2006, but in any case, it's lovely that it's online for the rest of you to visit):

If you believe in the magic of language,
then Elvis really Lives
and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin...

And, over breakfast this morning:
Crystal Meth Under Her Choir Robe by John Repp, from the May 2012 issue.

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fumbling and fluttering along

This morning, the funny little yellow fungi had faded into tiny orange shreds. The sky was showing signs of incoming rain, but I looked at the weather forecast (20% chance of precipitation) and decided to err on the side of over-saturation and watered the beds and the planters (the arugula and the radishes have already germinated!).

Naturally, 3/4 through my hospital shift, the only thing the people in the halls were talking about was the rain pelting down -- in part because it wasn't coming down, but falling sideways. In both directions. After my shift, I treated myself to a cup of hot chocolate from the machine in the lounge and peeked through a magazine that was so stupid I could feel my brain cells shriveling like the folds of fungi. (I like mind candy as much as the next bubblehead, but you know how there's good candy, okay candy, and corn-syrup-mixed-with-sock-lint candy? Yeah.)

The rain's eased up. The shoots of fungi have revived, upright again and back to bright yellow. Time to make lunch and find my groove...



In news news, there are three new poems to see...
Clinging (at Escape Into Life)
Even an Empty Life Can Hold Water (at Inkscrawl)
Making Rice Dance (also at Inkscrawl)

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it's been raining so much...

...that even the rail on the deck is sprouting fungi:


Naturally, the mosquitoes are also flourishing. I was not a happy kitten about them feasting on me. To Abby's immense relief, however, I decided to stay outside and get some gardening done (indoors, I've been stalking her with brush and scissors all around the house, since she's in high moult). Naturally, she wanted to help...



...and I did reward her with a green bean that had escaped its stalk. It was a productive day: I transplanted the Kentucky Colonel mint to the front yard and the rosemary and thyme to larger pots. I sowed arugula, radish, hollyhock, and primrose seeds. I divided my mom's ancient Christmas cactus (at least five years old, and probably more like ten) into three pots, as well as rooting one cutting and saving another. There was also some pruning and weeding and a side trip to a pathetic KMart and a decent Home Depot.

The to-do-next list includes transplanting and maybe dividing the tarragon, researching plants that should do well in light shade (I have some lists; it's a matter of deciding what I want), and maybe acquiring a bulb or two to force in some indoor containers...

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The yarrow is not stalking us

Seen on a wall of Nashville's Belcourt Theatre a couple of weeks ago:


Seen in Chungliang Al Huang's Quantum Soup (Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1991):

It is reassuring to realize that Confucius had only begun to appreciate the true value of the I Ching after reaching the ripe age of seventy. What is our hurry? The yarrow is not talking us.

[Incidentally, I have owned this book since 1996 or so and am finally, slowly making my way into it. Through it? That remains to be seen. There is hope.]

Yard update: hollyhock seedlings are visible, a bit earlier than anticipated. Still too early for the primroses and yes, yarrow.

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"We were sitting in traffic..."

Currently reading Martín Espada's A Mayan Astronomer in Hell's Kitchen. So far, my favorite poem in it is The Mexican Cabdriver's Poem for His Wife, Who Has Left Him.

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juice and seeds, dogs and dials

Normally, snapping an out-of-focus pic on my phone would merely mean a moment of mild annoyance on my part, but I kind of like this one -- it has the haze of some contemporary paintings that I like. Plus, it reminds me of seeing the plump little pup splashing happily in the kiddie pool in front of Baxter & Bailey -- that, really, was my favorite moment of my neighborhood's Tomato Fest: the generosity of the shop owner in setting up the pool (and the sign encouraging doggies to cool out in it) and the happiness of the dog and its owners as they paused there.

It was crazy hot all that day, but sunny, for which I was grateful, in part because I walked across the 'hood to meet a friend and later again to go to class but also because it meant our basement would get a chance to dry out. I was a little jittery during the storms on Thursday and Friday. We didn't get hit hard at all (there are people in Madison who lost homes and business-space to this latest round of flooding), but I come from a line of champion worrywarts, so it takes a conscious effort to dial down the disaster-lurking-in-every-drop circuits. (Last week's discovery: the sound of a running fan can sound like heavy rain to me.)

I've been clipping possum schmutz out of Abby's fur. I joked to a friend that dogs really do get away with murder.

A fine, fertile keyword popped into my head during yoga Friday or Saturday afternoon -- that is, a word I immediately recognized as a ripe, romp-around-the-yard-with word for a project due next month -- and, of course, it has since faded into the soup of other not-yet-written words-waiting-to-be-coaxed-into-flesh swamping the back burners of my mind. (How's that for trying too hard? *wry grin*) Anyway, I suspect it'll come back to me -- and in the meantime, I shall use it as motivation to get myself back to class, since I think it had something to do with what I was asking my body to do, so perhaps re-exercising muscle memory will jog the clog out of the conscious kind.

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The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, by Karla Kuskin and Marc Simont

It's a touch dated (published in 1982), but I am thoroughly charmed by The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, a picture book by Karla Kuskin and Marc Simont. (The link should take you to the publisher's website, which has a "look inside" feature.) There's a cat watching its owner reading in the bath. There are various performers showing, powdering, hunting for socks, pulling on boots, waiting for trains, tuning tympanis, etc. Sometimes I just want a book that revels in the process of getting ready. This fit the bill.

[It is perhaps not a coincidence that preparation has been much on my mind lately. Among other things, it is the month of Elul...]

[ETA: the books listed on the back jacket include The Dallas Titans Get Ready for Bed. That one is totally going on the someday list...]

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The Chef and I

I was a little apprehensive about going to the Chef and I in Nashville's Lenox Village last week. When I bought the Living Social voucher, the word "interactive" hadn't leapt out at me the way it did when I went to the website for more details, and I can get pretty sullen and surly if I'm feeling badgered into more interactivity than I'm in the mood to provide.

But it turned out to be a nice evening, even after I realized I'd totally gotten wrong which Lenox-something the restaurant was located around. (Note to self: do not buy anything via LS before the second cup of coffee. Ever.) The place is more mellow than its website -- I had a lovely sparkling wine (from Cielo winery) with lobster bisque, and halibut with various vegetables. The chef chatted briefly with me about the amuse-gueule (leftover coffee-crusted turkey, brie, and a sliver of scallion), tools for flipping fish, and the economics of serving lamb, but I was mostly left alone to enjoy my food, my notebook, and book in peace, and the room was large enough for the large birthday party behind me to be amusing rather than annoying.


"Thanksgiving in a bite"

(More cell-phone snapshots here)

Other recent eats:
* fried calamari at the Bosco's in Cool Springs, with iced tea
* buffalo cauliflower at Tavern, with a pint of Left Hand Milk Stout and a pint of Mayday Boro Blonde. And they serve cucumber sticks instead of celery. Rawk!
* chicken, stuffing, corn on the cob, and other sides, prepared by Jase. Happiness is comparing Music City Tent & Events warehouse sale acquisitions (*) while sipping a good pinot noir. :D

(* Jase is a party planner. I used to coordinate events for a cathedral. I don't plan to execute anything ambitious in the near future [at least in that vein], but I did leave the sale with what I'd gone for [5 champagne flutes] and then some [4 martini glasses].)

On the writing front: 2 outright rejections, 4 rejections-by-inference, 2 made-it-through-another-round, and 1 stern-talking-to to stop myself from taking on a new and intriguing but poorly remunerative assignment that would tick me off if I actually let it nibble into the time I already can't spare for [lower 4/5 of Workflowy list]. (But because I am a dreamer, it's nonetheless tucked into that bottom 5th. It'll save me from making the same notes again the next time my magpie brain darts in that direction...)

In the meantime, an item in the top 1/5 is to get enough sleep. So it's off to bed, undrafted [x] and unpasted [y] and unstitched [z] notwithstanding.

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