Kierkegaard, in idealizing his "knights of faith," of whom Abraham is the chief example, exalts faith to such a pitch that it is impossible for the common man. We are left with an absolute relationship to the universal ethos at best, but cannot move infinitely toward a particular's absolute relationship to the absolute. In other words, we're screwed. We need a counter-Kierkegaard who celebrates the sheep.
Kierkegaard thus creates a double standard for faith; the truly chosen, like Abraham, David, Jesus, Paul, Mary and others--and the rest of us who are told to do as they say, not as they do. They can do outlandish things because they have an absolute relation to the absolute, while we have only, at best, an absolute relationship to the universal. But the universal breaks down precisely where faith's deeds violate it
If I celebrated the simple faith of the sheep, those believers who do not exceed a vision of the universal ethos wedded to the numinous, but do the acts of faith faithfully, Kierkegaard would accuse me of elevating the bourgeois to the level of believer. He could find no true believer in his society but had to imagine one. In all, he repeats the psalmist: "Our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases."
If then the common believer cannot exceed the universal ethos without the burden of sin, he is condemned to a less than intimate relationship with God, the same that Kierkegaard achieved. The tragic hero discloses the universal ethos; the knight of faith exceeds it by special dispensation. In creating "the knight of faith" Kierkegaard comes dangerously close to Nietzsche's "Ubermensch." Both despised the average man, the bourgeoisie.
Kierkegaard exalts those who violate God's "law" in the name of a higher vision of God, just as God violates his own laws by raising Christ from the dead--though one can presume a higher law. If there is a higher law, it is the unpredictable aspect of God's nature. Thus God can conscript a man like Abraham into immoral ventures because the first necessary attribute of God is omnipotence, hence free will.
In summary, rather than a democratic existentialist, Kierkegaard becomes a spiritual elitist, holding us all to a standard of a special revelation of God--particularly a revelation that conflicts with the real ethos--as proof of our absolute relation to the absolute. In all this he ignores Christ, who is the absolute relation to the absolute, who in fact embodies the absolute. It is through Christ that we find the faith of sheep and the giants of the faith. One should not be dismissed by the other; prophets need followers, gods need disciples. We are Christ's hands and feet. For the foot to say to the hand, "you are above me," or "I don't need you" (as Paul instructed), denies the body of Christ.
Sure, Dante painted a picture of heaven where each soul rose to the highest sphere of what love it could receive, with Mary at the top because she could receive all of God's love. Each of us is filled to our capacity with love. That some have greater capacities is understandable, and is no reason for jealousy.
Kierkegaard, in essence, makes faith impossible by holding up impossible examples. It's the sorrow of the unattainable that runs through his work. He should have been a poet.
Kiloneutral,
CE
Unexpected Light
Selected Poems and Love Poems 1998-2008 ON SALE NOW!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
New Poem; Personal Update
My blog is flagging. I notice I haven't posted since June 14. My readership is naturally sagging faster than a woman who nursed quintuplets.
What have I to report? Or what to report have I? Or to report, what have I? I have what to report? My strength has never been reporting, and it's not just the syntax. I try to do "creative nonfiction" as it's being called today. Nothing new. Just another category for Mark Twain's "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," if I remember the title properly, though "jumping" seemeth redundant.
But I can report. My lovely 20-yr.-old daughter just concluded a two weeks' visit which made for a pause in our lives, what with all the hiking, shopping, and catching up on her life and ours.
Also, the relative contentment I've experienced chemically over the last several months has given me no urgent condition to confess.
I was at the Kate Wolf Musical Festival on Sunday, mainly to see Richard Thompson--who played solo and did not disappoint--though he left the headliner, Emmylou Harris, in dire straits by playing first. People started leaving during her set, and no wonder--that breathy, whining voice playing so many slow, essentially three-chord songs made for a painful anticlimax.
Some earlier acts were good, notably "Po Girl" and "The Girlie Boys." The latter group had some amazing harmonies.
On the literary front I can't remember how many links I've given you to reviews, interviews and the like. The reviews of my book are available at my website. I've had the most success in promoting the book at actual readings. My next comes on July 5 in LA at Beyond Baroque, a premier venue, so I'm told. Then I'm reading on July 28 at Amnesia (bar) in San Francisco. In between we hope to go on a journey north to Eugene, Oregon and the Olympic Peninsula to see friends, and old friend from high school and a longstanding literary acquaintance in the Peninsula, Laird Barron, whose new collection of horror stories, The Imago Sequence, I highly recommend.
I'm still recovering from Sunday's music marathon. It seems wherever you looked someone was passing a funny cigarette. And it was hot by Mendocino Coast standards, and combined with a healthy dose of beer I found myself immobile for long periods, punctuated by my need to wander through the campsites where I ran into a number of friends from the coast. In fact, I met the coast Rabbi for the first time, the wife of a friend. The Synagogue out here is a healthy concern.
Below, as you will see, I completed a long poem on "The River of Life," which also happens to be the theme adopted for our men's retreat this year. The poem diverges from much contemporary poetry by being Parnassian, or seeking the "high seriousness" that Matthew Arnold spoke of. That is to say, the poem relies more upon knowledge already possessed by the reader rather than any quotidian revelation or experiential epiphany gained. It talks about the river of life on two levels, but that is quite straightforward and I won't belabor the poem anymore here. I put it at the end of the post because I don't know how many will have the patience to read it, although it goes fairly fast--under ten minutes out loud, the best way to read any poem (and especially this poem because it relies so much on rhythm for its advancement).
If you get a poet talking about their art, be prepared to be bored for a while.
Driving home from Laytonville at 3 AM was a trial, after the long day, and my eyes blurred and watered so bad that I feared I would cease to see. Highway 101 north of Willits has some long-ass curves you can't really see at night, even with your brights, so I felt properly lost and stayed under 55 mph in the right lane (when there was one) despite the 65 mph speed limit. Once I got to the 20 in Willits I was better off because of familiarity, despite the two-lane endlessly winding road with turns sometimes designated at 15 mph.
The velocity of modern living is nothing to sneeze at, however, for how many have tweeted me in the interim, how many new literary publications have surfaced on the Net, how much Facebook news has passed me by--also I have been rejected again by Poetry, which seems to mark each quarter-year passing of my life. On to another rejection!
What does rejection mean from the top-flight magazines? Presumably that you're not top-flight yet. I accept that, though in some individual poems, like "Boundaries" (recently named the best poem on the net for one week), I may have risen above the glass ceiling, but that's just another poem rejected by Poetry (no, wait--I didn't see that specific work in my long line of rejections, but I swear I sent it to them once).
I'm told Jack London had near 600 rejections before he really started rolling, but his literary naturalism was a relief from current fare in his time, and he went on to become the biggest celebrity author in America, in fact, after Mark Twain, truly defining that role. I read twenty of his best stories recently, and his perspective of social Darwinism is often punctuated with stories of trust and brotherhood in the face of the wild, so it's not all survivalist literature. In particular I enjoyed his South Sea tales. Most only associate London with the far north, but he spent much time in the tropics as well.
As I said in my last post, I'm also recovering from the Laker's victory. Next year looks promising again. Meantime I'm so bored I'm watching the first season of "Lost" at night, a gift from my middle daughter. I can't explain why I like the show so much, I suppose it's the characters, though they do not face survival as London's characters did, as food and shelter are provided by previous inhabitants of the mysterious island.
I've been avidly listening to a new bird call that swirls and rises and echoes itself at the end; we think it's a Swainson's Thrush, as thrushes are the most elegant singing birds in this neck of the woods, indeed of North America. Robert Frost has a lovely poem on one, "The Oven Bird," as does Hardy in "The Darkling Thrush." These birds can actually manufacture two tones at once and harmonize with themselves, something humpback whales cannot do for all their length of song.
I feel a little stymied at present; my long poem was roundly trashed at a poetry workshop site; I need a boost of creativity or insight or something to get my muse back at the table. Perhaps I have insulted her by going my way too much in the poem below. The reader must judge, if indeed any reader braves the poem.
"It's OK to be content," my wife assures me, but what I'm experiencing is sort of a boredom with contentment. I need a new challenge. I will be teaching a health course at the local community college if things work out, but this may depend upon certain uncertainties with my insurance company that pays the bill for my disability. I don't know if they'll even let me earn a small income through any constructive means--"totally disabled" means no work of any kind, and by putting limits on what such a person can do, the insurance company makes it an all or nothing proposition; I mean, if I do the slightest menial work for wages I might be disqualified from my benefits. I'm gathering the courage to write them, my main obstacle before confirming my teaching gig, which I would very much like to perform.
The teaching gig raises that terrible question--will they google me? And if so, will they find the record of my struggle with manic-depression? No doubt, but I hope all the publications listed first will discourage them from further seeking.
Once you've gone public there's not much privacy to protect. As I try to live my life transparently, this is no problem, but it could present a problem to future employers. My response to that would be to block my blog, where most of my confessional agonies have been posted.
Think: When I began this blog on July 27, 2005, I was embroiled in legal complications in Mexico regarding the return of our dog and other possessions that were being ransomed by our former maid. Overall, Mexico was a disaster for us, emotionally, physically and financially. It was truly the land of dreams, though in our case, failed dreams. If you want to get blotto and hang around with wanna-be artists and expats, San Miguel is the place for you. You can even build a lovely house and get divorced afterwards, as some of our friends did. Affairs abounded. All rules were off. Kathleen and I survived with our love intact but not much else. And by this I do not mean to imply that any unfaithfulness occurred on our part, it didn't; it's just that so many free spirits were pursuing adolescent dreams in their 50s there.
So Michael Jackson's dead. For me it's sort of like Bob Hope: "You mean he was still alive?" I kept waiting for Bob Hope to die until I convinced myself he had done it quietly. Then I found out the man presumed dead finally died. So it goes. Can't keep up with all the icons, past and present. In fact, the second page of our paper from Santa Rosa is often filled with celebrities whom I don't know or know of. And who are the real celebrities? Did I need to know that one member of the band, "Men at Work," was having as birthday? That's stretching celebrity to a fine thinness of irrelevance.
So much for today's bloviations. Here's the poem:
River of Life
The river is within us, the sea is all about us. --T. S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages”
I
Beneath decaying humus
watershed seeps.
Flow deepens to a vein.
A trickle moves the leaves.
Moss comes and salamanders
until a thousand veins
braid into a river.
The river is always thirsty.
It seeks the roots of mountains,
clay cisterns and the pools
that hide in dimpled rock.
It wants each drop that formed
a fairyland of limestone
beneath the strawberry farm.
It wants the ice of comets
and all the clouds as trophies.
The river is always thirsty.
II
Take any river at any time
and sample the current with a paper boat.
As time flows forward, the boat will head
in only one direction. The river passes,
forgetting history each hundred yards,
the willows and red alders that flung shade,
the heron standing still to spear a frog,
the fisherman with all his elegant flies,
the stone that carved a furrow in the flood.
Stones plow the river and the river shifts.
Stones dissolve to sand; the river straightens.
The river has no obstacles but delays,
delays it overcomes by streaming patience,
patience enough to undermine the bridges,
bridges that chain and prows of wooden docks,
docks that thought to live a little longer.
III
Water has a million voices
falling like gravity.
Each drop has a say
in the sound
of seeking lower places.
I lean against this granite
creased by watery knives,
smoothed by watery hands
and listen to the one voice
cascading downwards
made of many voices
wishing to be heard.
If I could meld
with water, would I hear
the separate conversations,
compromises, the protests
of portions stranded
in mosquito pools?
Or would the sound
so overwhelm me
I might never hear
my own voice
spilling over stone?
IV
From Eden comes four rivers that fed time's roots.
From Babel comes the river of sundered tongues.
From Egypt comes a river that spawned an afterlife.
From India comes a river as holy as its dead.
River of corpses and mud,
River of commerce with man on its wild back.
River of faces bestirred by fathoms,
River of preachers turned to weeds.
River of television flooding eyes.
River of typhoid and cholera.
River of effluents poisoned by mercury.
River bloated with rain, thinned by drought.
River of visionaries beholding the Tao.
V
Can any man refuse
the pleading of the willow,
the exclamation of irises,
the importunings of rhododendrons,
the shuddering of meadows in the wind?
The river is feminine.
In a world of heroics there is also consensus,
the hands of women in the distant kitchen,
how each of us was aided unawares
by river's daughters stepping through our sleep
with gifts laid at our doorstep without asking.
The river calls us as a sister,
embroidering our name
on river stones.
If we should strive against her force
in a salmon's marathon of death
to spread our cloudy sperm on sand
we leave the great blue mother
only to seek another.
She birthed the salmon and the steelhead,
the crayfish and the water striders.
The deep ravine is her vagina,
the forest her mons,
her legs the shore,
the world her hips,
her breasts two moons.
We need not fear diminishment
in her watery stare,
it is the transparency of welcome.
Oh mariner, wherever you voyage
you must return to her.
Mother of all, we come
VI
At the city's witching hour
when men lean back in leather
and women put their cell phones
into purses, when pigeons flee
from briefcase pendulums,
streams of pedestrians
ignore the silent laws
flashing in red and green
while cars imprisoned by the multitudes
hunger to turn their axles and nose ahead.
Through flow and counter-flow
the Tao proceeds past hydrants and motels.
The map you clutch in hope is only good
for this moment: the river swallows all.
The river disgorges all but all is changed,
scoured, transformed upon the banks
where voyeurism masquerades as wisdom
and observation substitutes for action.
Discard the armchair view,
forsake your story, return
to the patient green hammer,
the white torrent and the black grotto.
The river calls in its quietest voice,
lapping against the reeds.
VII
In the Jordan River
a flood of light descended
as from another shore
upon the Son of Man
and heaven's river opened.
When God the Father said,
“This is my beloved son”
two rivers met as one.
And Mary, didn't the river
come to you as well?
With a voice of many waters,
the Word within the world
the world could not abide?
In an agonizing spring
blood and water poured from his side
and when he joined the river
strange tongues of fire came.
VIII
The river of the Spirit
came to inhabit man.
Each moment of our winding
rejuvenates our span.
We journey on two rivers
by kayak and coracle,
the river of existence
and that of miracle.
One throws us in the water
and bids us sink or swim.
The other grants us rapture
in every nerve and limb.
Look forward, mariner,
the ocean breaches land
to liberate the river
from the delta's hand.
Let your heart be open,
your oars unclenched;
receive the promised waters,
be slaked and quenched.
IX
To wander without purpose
is not without direction:
the river knows its way.
Love seeks the lowest place.
No ironwork can anchor
a man against this flood.
No seam of gold is safe
but flakes into the river;
the current's in our blood.
Drink deeply of the river,
our common history.
Sing quietly in chorus.
Wherever the river runs
your voice will not be lost
inside the surge and hum.
Thanks for reading,
Kiloneutral,
CE
What have I to report? Or what to report have I? Or to report, what have I? I have what to report? My strength has never been reporting, and it's not just the syntax. I try to do "creative nonfiction" as it's being called today. Nothing new. Just another category for Mark Twain's "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," if I remember the title properly, though "jumping" seemeth redundant.
But I can report. My lovely 20-yr.-old daughter just concluded a two weeks' visit which made for a pause in our lives, what with all the hiking, shopping, and catching up on her life and ours.
Also, the relative contentment I've experienced chemically over the last several months has given me no urgent condition to confess.
I was at the Kate Wolf Musical Festival on Sunday, mainly to see Richard Thompson--who played solo and did not disappoint--though he left the headliner, Emmylou Harris, in dire straits by playing first. People started leaving during her set, and no wonder--that breathy, whining voice playing so many slow, essentially three-chord songs made for a painful anticlimax.
Some earlier acts were good, notably "Po Girl" and "The Girlie Boys." The latter group had some amazing harmonies.
On the literary front I can't remember how many links I've given you to reviews, interviews and the like. The reviews of my book are available at my website. I've had the most success in promoting the book at actual readings. My next comes on July 5 in LA at Beyond Baroque, a premier venue, so I'm told. Then I'm reading on July 28 at Amnesia (bar) in San Francisco. In between we hope to go on a journey north to Eugene, Oregon and the Olympic Peninsula to see friends, and old friend from high school and a longstanding literary acquaintance in the Peninsula, Laird Barron, whose new collection of horror stories, The Imago Sequence, I highly recommend.
I'm still recovering from Sunday's music marathon. It seems wherever you looked someone was passing a funny cigarette. And it was hot by Mendocino Coast standards, and combined with a healthy dose of beer I found myself immobile for long periods, punctuated by my need to wander through the campsites where I ran into a number of friends from the coast. In fact, I met the coast Rabbi for the first time, the wife of a friend. The Synagogue out here is a healthy concern.
Below, as you will see, I completed a long poem on "The River of Life," which also happens to be the theme adopted for our men's retreat this year. The poem diverges from much contemporary poetry by being Parnassian, or seeking the "high seriousness" that Matthew Arnold spoke of. That is to say, the poem relies more upon knowledge already possessed by the reader rather than any quotidian revelation or experiential epiphany gained. It talks about the river of life on two levels, but that is quite straightforward and I won't belabor the poem anymore here. I put it at the end of the post because I don't know how many will have the patience to read it, although it goes fairly fast--under ten minutes out loud, the best way to read any poem (and especially this poem because it relies so much on rhythm for its advancement).
If you get a poet talking about their art, be prepared to be bored for a while.
Driving home from Laytonville at 3 AM was a trial, after the long day, and my eyes blurred and watered so bad that I feared I would cease to see. Highway 101 north of Willits has some long-ass curves you can't really see at night, even with your brights, so I felt properly lost and stayed under 55 mph in the right lane (when there was one) despite the 65 mph speed limit. Once I got to the 20 in Willits I was better off because of familiarity, despite the two-lane endlessly winding road with turns sometimes designated at 15 mph.
The velocity of modern living is nothing to sneeze at, however, for how many have tweeted me in the interim, how many new literary publications have surfaced on the Net, how much Facebook news has passed me by--also I have been rejected again by Poetry, which seems to mark each quarter-year passing of my life. On to another rejection!
What does rejection mean from the top-flight magazines? Presumably that you're not top-flight yet. I accept that, though in some individual poems, like "Boundaries" (recently named the best poem on the net for one week), I may have risen above the glass ceiling, but that's just another poem rejected by Poetry (no, wait--I didn't see that specific work in my long line of rejections, but I swear I sent it to them once).
I'm told Jack London had near 600 rejections before he really started rolling, but his literary naturalism was a relief from current fare in his time, and he went on to become the biggest celebrity author in America, in fact, after Mark Twain, truly defining that role. I read twenty of his best stories recently, and his perspective of social Darwinism is often punctuated with stories of trust and brotherhood in the face of the wild, so it's not all survivalist literature. In particular I enjoyed his South Sea tales. Most only associate London with the far north, but he spent much time in the tropics as well.
As I said in my last post, I'm also recovering from the Laker's victory. Next year looks promising again. Meantime I'm so bored I'm watching the first season of "Lost" at night, a gift from my middle daughter. I can't explain why I like the show so much, I suppose it's the characters, though they do not face survival as London's characters did, as food and shelter are provided by previous inhabitants of the mysterious island.
I've been avidly listening to a new bird call that swirls and rises and echoes itself at the end; we think it's a Swainson's Thrush, as thrushes are the most elegant singing birds in this neck of the woods, indeed of North America. Robert Frost has a lovely poem on one, "The Oven Bird," as does Hardy in "The Darkling Thrush." These birds can actually manufacture two tones at once and harmonize with themselves, something humpback whales cannot do for all their length of song.
I feel a little stymied at present; my long poem was roundly trashed at a poetry workshop site; I need a boost of creativity or insight or something to get my muse back at the table. Perhaps I have insulted her by going my way too much in the poem below. The reader must judge, if indeed any reader braves the poem.
"It's OK to be content," my wife assures me, but what I'm experiencing is sort of a boredom with contentment. I need a new challenge. I will be teaching a health course at the local community college if things work out, but this may depend upon certain uncertainties with my insurance company that pays the bill for my disability. I don't know if they'll even let me earn a small income through any constructive means--"totally disabled" means no work of any kind, and by putting limits on what such a person can do, the insurance company makes it an all or nothing proposition; I mean, if I do the slightest menial work for wages I might be disqualified from my benefits. I'm gathering the courage to write them, my main obstacle before confirming my teaching gig, which I would very much like to perform.
The teaching gig raises that terrible question--will they google me? And if so, will they find the record of my struggle with manic-depression? No doubt, but I hope all the publications listed first will discourage them from further seeking.
Once you've gone public there's not much privacy to protect. As I try to live my life transparently, this is no problem, but it could present a problem to future employers. My response to that would be to block my blog, where most of my confessional agonies have been posted.
Think: When I began this blog on July 27, 2005, I was embroiled in legal complications in Mexico regarding the return of our dog and other possessions that were being ransomed by our former maid. Overall, Mexico was a disaster for us, emotionally, physically and financially. It was truly the land of dreams, though in our case, failed dreams. If you want to get blotto and hang around with wanna-be artists and expats, San Miguel is the place for you. You can even build a lovely house and get divorced afterwards, as some of our friends did. Affairs abounded. All rules were off. Kathleen and I survived with our love intact but not much else. And by this I do not mean to imply that any unfaithfulness occurred on our part, it didn't; it's just that so many free spirits were pursuing adolescent dreams in their 50s there.
So Michael Jackson's dead. For me it's sort of like Bob Hope: "You mean he was still alive?" I kept waiting for Bob Hope to die until I convinced myself he had done it quietly. Then I found out the man presumed dead finally died. So it goes. Can't keep up with all the icons, past and present. In fact, the second page of our paper from Santa Rosa is often filled with celebrities whom I don't know or know of. And who are the real celebrities? Did I need to know that one member of the band, "Men at Work," was having as birthday? That's stretching celebrity to a fine thinness of irrelevance.
So much for today's bloviations. Here's the poem:
River of Life
The river is within us, the sea is all about us. --T. S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages”
I
Beneath decaying humus
watershed seeps.
Flow deepens to a vein.
A trickle moves the leaves.
Moss comes and salamanders
until a thousand veins
braid into a river.
The river is always thirsty.
It seeks the roots of mountains,
clay cisterns and the pools
that hide in dimpled rock.
It wants each drop that formed
a fairyland of limestone
beneath the strawberry farm.
It wants the ice of comets
and all the clouds as trophies.
The river is always thirsty.
II
Take any river at any time
and sample the current with a paper boat.
As time flows forward, the boat will head
in only one direction. The river passes,
forgetting history each hundred yards,
the willows and red alders that flung shade,
the heron standing still to spear a frog,
the fisherman with all his elegant flies,
the stone that carved a furrow in the flood.
Stones plow the river and the river shifts.
Stones dissolve to sand; the river straightens.
The river has no obstacles but delays,
delays it overcomes by streaming patience,
patience enough to undermine the bridges,
bridges that chain and prows of wooden docks,
docks that thought to live a little longer.
III
Water has a million voices
falling like gravity.
Each drop has a say
in the sound
of seeking lower places.
I lean against this granite
creased by watery knives,
smoothed by watery hands
and listen to the one voice
cascading downwards
made of many voices
wishing to be heard.
If I could meld
with water, would I hear
the separate conversations,
compromises, the protests
of portions stranded
in mosquito pools?
Or would the sound
so overwhelm me
I might never hear
my own voice
spilling over stone?
IV
From Eden comes four rivers that fed time's roots.
From Babel comes the river of sundered tongues.
From Egypt comes a river that spawned an afterlife.
From India comes a river as holy as its dead.
River of corpses and mud,
River of commerce with man on its wild back.
River of faces bestirred by fathoms,
River of preachers turned to weeds.
River of television flooding eyes.
River of typhoid and cholera.
River of effluents poisoned by mercury.
River bloated with rain, thinned by drought.
River of visionaries beholding the Tao.
V
Can any man refuse
the pleading of the willow,
the exclamation of irises,
the importunings of rhododendrons,
the shuddering of meadows in the wind?
The river is feminine.
In a world of heroics there is also consensus,
the hands of women in the distant kitchen,
how each of us was aided unawares
by river's daughters stepping through our sleep
with gifts laid at our doorstep without asking.
The river calls us as a sister,
embroidering our name
on river stones.
If we should strive against her force
in a salmon's marathon of death
to spread our cloudy sperm on sand
we leave the great blue mother
only to seek another.
She birthed the salmon and the steelhead,
the crayfish and the water striders.
The deep ravine is her vagina,
the forest her mons,
her legs the shore,
the world her hips,
her breasts two moons.
We need not fear diminishment
in her watery stare,
it is the transparency of welcome.
Oh mariner, wherever you voyage
you must return to her.
Mother of all, we come
VI
At the city's witching hour
when men lean back in leather
and women put their cell phones
into purses, when pigeons flee
from briefcase pendulums,
streams of pedestrians
ignore the silent laws
flashing in red and green
while cars imprisoned by the multitudes
hunger to turn their axles and nose ahead.
Through flow and counter-flow
the Tao proceeds past hydrants and motels.
The map you clutch in hope is only good
for this moment: the river swallows all.
The river disgorges all but all is changed,
scoured, transformed upon the banks
where voyeurism masquerades as wisdom
and observation substitutes for action.
Discard the armchair view,
forsake your story, return
to the patient green hammer,
the white torrent and the black grotto.
The river calls in its quietest voice,
lapping against the reeds.
VII
In the Jordan River
a flood of light descended
as from another shore
upon the Son of Man
and heaven's river opened.
When God the Father said,
“This is my beloved son”
two rivers met as one.
And Mary, didn't the river
come to you as well?
With a voice of many waters,
the Word within the world
the world could not abide?
In an agonizing spring
blood and water poured from his side
and when he joined the river
strange tongues of fire came.
VIII
The river of the Spirit
came to inhabit man.
Each moment of our winding
rejuvenates our span.
We journey on two rivers
by kayak and coracle,
the river of existence
and that of miracle.
One throws us in the water
and bids us sink or swim.
The other grants us rapture
in every nerve and limb.
Look forward, mariner,
the ocean breaches land
to liberate the river
from the delta's hand.
Let your heart be open,
your oars unclenched;
receive the promised waters,
be slaked and quenched.
IX
To wander without purpose
is not without direction:
the river knows its way.
Love seeks the lowest place.
No ironwork can anchor
a man against this flood.
No seam of gold is safe
but flakes into the river;
the current's in our blood.
Drink deeply of the river,
our common history.
Sing quietly in chorus.
Wherever the river runs
your voice will not be lost
inside the surge and hum.
Thanks for reading,
Kiloneutral,
CE
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Short Take on the Lakers' Victory
The Lakers have won it all and my anxiety is slaked. How nervous and pessimistic I become as I watch! Even a 16 point lead in the 4th quarter wasn't enough for me. I could only think of how we might blow it, and victory was more a relief for me than a celebration. Call me a nervous fan.
I lived through last year's sixth game blowout just as the Lakers did, and we came to the same conclusion: toughen up. And toughen up we did. We played hard in the post, making Dwight Howard ineffective. Just as importantly, we shot better tonight than they did from three point range. Ariza was wonderful, as were Kobe, Lamar and Fisher. We had the grit. We had the determination. And it feels almost as if Kobe willed us this championship. He was hungry, he let everyone know it, especially his teammates. And they took their cue from him.
Who's better, Kobe or LeBron? I'd have to say LeBron. But Kobe has a superior "supporting cast," it's clear. There's talk of Shaq going to Cleveland, but they need youth--what with robotic Ilgauskus and washed-up Ben Wallace and can't- shoot Varajao. All LeBron has is Mo Williams and change. He needs a real post player like Garnett or Gasol to excel in team basketball. And may I say, regarding Garnett, that if he and Leon Powe were healthy (for the Celtics) they would have represented the East, and the series would have likely gone seven. Because of injuries the two best teams did not meet in the finals.
Good to see Kobe with his first MVP award as well, and for Phil to get that number ten over Red Auerbach, longtime nemesis of the Lakers.
"So what will we do now?" my wife and I exclaim. Basketball takes up a big portion of our psychic life in its season, and now perhaps we'll be freed to work in the garden and socialize a little more. Like I said, it's a relief.
At Kiloneutral,
CE
I lived through last year's sixth game blowout just as the Lakers did, and we came to the same conclusion: toughen up. And toughen up we did. We played hard in the post, making Dwight Howard ineffective. Just as importantly, we shot better tonight than they did from three point range. Ariza was wonderful, as were Kobe, Lamar and Fisher. We had the grit. We had the determination. And it feels almost as if Kobe willed us this championship. He was hungry, he let everyone know it, especially his teammates. And they took their cue from him.
Who's better, Kobe or LeBron? I'd have to say LeBron. But Kobe has a superior "supporting cast," it's clear. There's talk of Shaq going to Cleveland, but they need youth--what with robotic Ilgauskus and washed-up Ben Wallace and can't- shoot Varajao. All LeBron has is Mo Williams and change. He needs a real post player like Garnett or Gasol to excel in team basketball. And may I say, regarding Garnett, that if he and Leon Powe were healthy (for the Celtics) they would have represented the East, and the series would have likely gone seven. Because of injuries the two best teams did not meet in the finals.
Good to see Kobe with his first MVP award as well, and for Phil to get that number ten over Red Auerbach, longtime nemesis of the Lakers.
"So what will we do now?" my wife and I exclaim. Basketball takes up a big portion of our psychic life in its season, and now perhaps we'll be freed to work in the garden and socialize a little more. Like I said, it's a relief.
At Kiloneutral,
CE
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Garden Tours; Osprey Poem
Today I led two tours at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, the first with Kindergartners and the second with seniors. It became obvious to me that the kids needed to stay in motion; to stop and lecture about heritage roses only frustrated them, but to watch them smell and touch the roses was a trip.
Seniors tend to wander away on their own to whatever interested them, a natural outcome of the freedom and economy shortened time imparts. By the end of the tour I had only three seniors left; all the others had detoured.
Quite a contrast, the energy of the very young and the wanderings of the old. To know what you want in your remaining time is a good trait, it saves wastage, but to be a five-year-old is to want everything, to experience everything. In a healthy kid with a good family the world can be Disneyland. Because of that impression, when I went grocery shopping afterwards, I tried to enjoy each choice of goods and interaction with others in the same way, and it worked well. I was in no hurry, simply open to new experiences with no timetable or agenda. Of course, one of the stops was at the pharmacy where I picked up my antipsychotic medicine, Abilify, which allows me to experience "normality." Gotta love the name of that drug. Makes me think of others:
Blowitoffazol
Idontcarazine.
Antimelancholycodone.
Rejoicatol.
Getoffmycaserpine.
Wouldn't it be fun to work in the name department for new drugs? Whoever invented the palindrome Xanax was a genius.
Words and diseases should sound like themselves, why I don't like the word, "pulchritude," meaning beautifully voluptuous. Sounds more like a mortal sin. "The hubris of his pulchritude betrayed him."
Tuberculosis sounds like a slimy disease; syphilis sounds nasty; pancreatitis is as painful as it sounds. Pustules, boils, fractures, hematomas, you gotta love it. But there are exceptions--like "fifth disease," a common and harmless virus in children.
As a poet I like words that sound like what they are.
*********************************************************************************
I may be teaching a health course at the local community college this fall. Gotta be sure to invite some local healers--Mendocino is full of them--to be in tune with the culture around me: herbalists, naturopaths, yoga teachers, and all sorts of specialized services for the spiritually aware--not to imply that these are better methods to health--only that 90% of illnesses are "self-limiting," so it doesn't matter whom you go to to feel better in most cases. But as I always say, if you're in real pain you'll go to a real doctor. Crystals won't make a bad appendix ascend out of the abdomen. (Unless you have double-blind studies to prove it.)
I tried to write a poem yesterday about two ospreys but according to my wife and editor it didn't turn out so well. BTW, the new Blue Fifth Review is out, edited by Sam Rasnake. I recommend it even though I have no work in there!
Here's the poem my editor didn't like (it's no great shakes, just what I saw yesterday):
At Frolic Cove
In the osprey's spiculed talons
a green fish wriggled headfirst,
righted like a torpedo
so that its tail resembled
a flapping rudder
beneath the tail fan.
The waterfall was low.
I cupped my hand and drank.
The creek disappeared in sand.
Circling back, with crooked wings
she signaled to her mate
a return to the massive nest.
Four times she flew around
until the fish grew limp
and merely hung.
North he flew reluctantly,
a fisherman embarrassed.
Frolic Cove is the site where a ship foundered and broke back in 1857, full of silk and china. Pieces of the cargo were discovered in Pomo Indian settlements up to 20 miles away. All the seamen escaped as the captain managed to beach the boat after breaking on the reef. Sometimes Kathleen thinks she has found there remnants of broken china bits polished by the sea. I'm sure the poem would be better if I included the crash. But "It is what it is." I'm fond of that newspeak tautology, I admit. And the experience was what it was, though likely not enough for a poem--yet.
All for today,
At 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Seniors tend to wander away on their own to whatever interested them, a natural outcome of the freedom and economy shortened time imparts. By the end of the tour I had only three seniors left; all the others had detoured.
Quite a contrast, the energy of the very young and the wanderings of the old. To know what you want in your remaining time is a good trait, it saves wastage, but to be a five-year-old is to want everything, to experience everything. In a healthy kid with a good family the world can be Disneyland. Because of that impression, when I went grocery shopping afterwards, I tried to enjoy each choice of goods and interaction with others in the same way, and it worked well. I was in no hurry, simply open to new experiences with no timetable or agenda. Of course, one of the stops was at the pharmacy where I picked up my antipsychotic medicine, Abilify, which allows me to experience "normality." Gotta love the name of that drug. Makes me think of others:
Blowitoffazol
Idontcarazine.
Antimelancholycodone.
Rejoicatol.
Getoffmycaserpine.
Wouldn't it be fun to work in the name department for new drugs? Whoever invented the palindrome Xanax was a genius.
Words and diseases should sound like themselves, why I don't like the word, "pulchritude," meaning beautifully voluptuous. Sounds more like a mortal sin. "The hubris of his pulchritude betrayed him."
Tuberculosis sounds like a slimy disease; syphilis sounds nasty; pancreatitis is as painful as it sounds. Pustules, boils, fractures, hematomas, you gotta love it. But there are exceptions--like "fifth disease," a common and harmless virus in children.
As a poet I like words that sound like what they are.
*********************************************************************************
I may be teaching a health course at the local community college this fall. Gotta be sure to invite some local healers--Mendocino is full of them--to be in tune with the culture around me: herbalists, naturopaths, yoga teachers, and all sorts of specialized services for the spiritually aware--not to imply that these are better methods to health--only that 90% of illnesses are "self-limiting," so it doesn't matter whom you go to to feel better in most cases. But as I always say, if you're in real pain you'll go to a real doctor. Crystals won't make a bad appendix ascend out of the abdomen. (Unless you have double-blind studies to prove it.)
I tried to write a poem yesterday about two ospreys but according to my wife and editor it didn't turn out so well. BTW, the new Blue Fifth Review is out, edited by Sam Rasnake. I recommend it even though I have no work in there!
Here's the poem my editor didn't like (it's no great shakes, just what I saw yesterday):
At Frolic Cove
In the osprey's spiculed talons
a green fish wriggled headfirst,
righted like a torpedo
so that its tail resembled
a flapping rudder
beneath the tail fan.
The waterfall was low.
I cupped my hand and drank.
The creek disappeared in sand.
Circling back, with crooked wings
she signaled to her mate
a return to the massive nest.
Four times she flew around
until the fish grew limp
and merely hung.
North he flew reluctantly,
a fisherman embarrassed.
Frolic Cove is the site where a ship foundered and broke back in 1857, full of silk and china. Pieces of the cargo were discovered in Pomo Indian settlements up to 20 miles away. All the seamen escaped as the captain managed to beach the boat after breaking on the reef. Sometimes Kathleen thinks she has found there remnants of broken china bits polished by the sea. I'm sure the poem would be better if I included the crash. But "It is what it is." I'm fond of that newspeak tautology, I admit. And the experience was what it was, though likely not enough for a poem--yet.
All for today,
At 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Monday, June 01, 2009
Update on Publications and Reading Venues; New Poem
I wanted to alert you to some new publications and readings.
Here's an essay in Barefoot Muse on "Intellectual Substance in Poetry":
There is a companion essay in Umbrella:
I think I already told you about my memoir "On Becoming a Poet" in PIF:
New poems in The Avatar Review:
And my upcoming readings:
First, "Poetry and Pizza" at 333 Montgomery at Bush in SF on June 5 at 8 PM, hope some of you can come.
I'll be at Beyond Baroque on July 5 at 5 PM, 681 Venice blvd, Venice, CA for any in the LA area.
More to come...
And thanks to all who have purchased my book--like the reviews, I've heard nothing but good reports!
As for my previous blog, hashing it out on paper has helped me make peace with ambition again. It's about the poem. Publishing and recognition are secondary, but I for one need the encouragement to go on. So I do.
June gloom has hit Mendocino and Kathleen hates it. The overcast days don't affect my mood one way or the other. Then I'm Nordic by descent.
There were some great comments on my last post if you haven't read them. Thanks Mittens and Beau Blue!
Since I find myself with little else to say, here's a new poem I may have posted in rough draft form before but I doubt it. Ah memory, where hast thou gone?
Of Book Trees
First, do not pick a green book,
the print is faint
and there's often no ending.
They also fail to develop the proper musk,
that smell of paper and glue.
Paperbacks mature more quickly
but are usually known cultivars
and lack the vigor of hybrids
that hardbacks display.
Still, where the soil is poor
or shade diminishes
the literary vigor of the tree,
occasionally a masterpiece
may appear. These are usually
grafted onto hardback stock
as soon as possible.
Pulp paperback trees
have no peer and can produce
more fruit than any other
though as in a Chinese meal
you may be hungry afterwards.
The rules for nonfiction trees are simple:
lots of room and lots of light.
Space them too close together
and they share the same opinion;
give them too much shade
and the research isn't up to par.
Reference trees are orderly as beech forests,
their tall smooth boles spaced widely,
an air of gravity in the light
that floods the oblong leaves.
Silence and history walk there.
Beware a brown book,
usually overwritten or overripe,
with stultifying reams of overexplanation
and overelaboration as in how many paradoxes
can fit on the head of a heading.
But you might find Henry James there
or the critical prose of Eliot,
so a discriminating taste
in aged books should be cultivated;
not all their fruit is dry.
A red book should be picked immediately.
Bright red has the genius of youth
though Shakespeare and Dante
come in gold and are common now,
having been cultivated for centuries.
The Bible is black but remember,
licorice tea is sweet
like the scroll Jeremiah ate.
Poetry trees are rare
and do best in the high desert.
Overwatering them
leads to self-indulgence
while soil too rich yields verse
in love with its own diction.
Planted in unforgiving soil
they have a chance,
though most die young.
At 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Here's an essay in Barefoot Muse on "Intellectual Substance in Poetry":
There is a companion essay in Umbrella:
I think I already told you about my memoir "On Becoming a Poet" in PIF:
New poems in The Avatar Review:
And my upcoming readings:
First, "Poetry and Pizza" at 333 Montgomery at Bush in SF on June 5 at 8 PM, hope some of you can come.
I'll be at Beyond Baroque on July 5 at 5 PM, 681 Venice blvd, Venice, CA for any in the LA area.
More to come...
And thanks to all who have purchased my book--like the reviews, I've heard nothing but good reports!
As for my previous blog, hashing it out on paper has helped me make peace with ambition again. It's about the poem. Publishing and recognition are secondary, but I for one need the encouragement to go on. So I do.
June gloom has hit Mendocino and Kathleen hates it. The overcast days don't affect my mood one way or the other. Then I'm Nordic by descent.
There were some great comments on my last post if you haven't read them. Thanks Mittens and Beau Blue!
Since I find myself with little else to say, here's a new poem I may have posted in rough draft form before but I doubt it. Ah memory, where hast thou gone?
Of Book Trees
First, do not pick a green book,
the print is faint
and there's often no ending.
They also fail to develop the proper musk,
that smell of paper and glue.
Paperbacks mature more quickly
but are usually known cultivars
and lack the vigor of hybrids
that hardbacks display.
Still, where the soil is poor
or shade diminishes
the literary vigor of the tree,
occasionally a masterpiece
may appear. These are usually
grafted onto hardback stock
as soon as possible.
Pulp paperback trees
have no peer and can produce
more fruit than any other
though as in a Chinese meal
you may be hungry afterwards.
The rules for nonfiction trees are simple:
lots of room and lots of light.
Space them too close together
and they share the same opinion;
give them too much shade
and the research isn't up to par.
Reference trees are orderly as beech forests,
their tall smooth boles spaced widely,
an air of gravity in the light
that floods the oblong leaves.
Silence and history walk there.
Beware a brown book,
usually overwritten or overripe,
with stultifying reams of overexplanation
and overelaboration as in how many paradoxes
can fit on the head of a heading.
But you might find Henry James there
or the critical prose of Eliot,
so a discriminating taste
in aged books should be cultivated;
not all their fruit is dry.
A red book should be picked immediately.
Bright red has the genius of youth
though Shakespeare and Dante
come in gold and are common now,
having been cultivated for centuries.
The Bible is black but remember,
licorice tea is sweet
like the scroll Jeremiah ate.
Poetry trees are rare
and do best in the high desert.
Overwatering them
leads to self-indulgence
while soil too rich yields verse
in love with its own diction.
Planted in unforgiving soil
they have a chance,
though most die young.
At 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Battle for Poetic Recognition
I recently bought a new "Poet's Market," an intimidating book printed on cheap paper of 572 pp. In it is an interview with a "successful" poet, who does 75 seminars and readings a year, up to 150 if he has a new book or album out. He edits a literary magazine and is also a songwriter.
He estimates that 1400 Americans may make some living through poetry, which sounds like a lot to me. Obviously this man works hard. Yet in researching him on the net he had only 5% of the references I do on Google. Apparently he has not published extensively online. Then I checked his latest book from 2007. It ranks below 1,600,000 titles on Amazon. My new book ranks just above 900,000, for comparison, rendering them likely equally obscure. I also did not recognize his name from the article.
T. S. Eliot wrote "There is no competition." Unfortunately, in this day and age of proliferating poets, Eliot is wrong. There is competition. Each poem published in a journal that rejects me is a potential place where I might have had success. Each reading booked up in advance in a major city is one reading I can't get.
Although K.F. admits that the poetry world has proliferated beyond his imaginings, from open mikes to slams, the Internet, etc., he has this to say about the art:
"What has not changed is the nepotism of the Biz and the preconceived notions of the academic sector. Most poets still teach to support themselves. There is still no one who rushes home to tell his parents that he is a poet and then is subsequently swamped with congratulations and financial support."
We all know this. Poets are not pariahs, just largely irrelevant to the larger culture. I have compared poetry to lawn bowling in this regard in past essays, "a cultural vestigial organ." Yet if one is truly infected by poetry there is no cure. I will go on writing and publishing until they take this computer from my cold dead hands. Yes, I want to be read. Yes, I would like more recognition. Yes, I have a new book to promote and eight interviews and eight reviews already. But I assure you my book is not jumping off the shelves. The most I've sold at once is five at a local reading. (I also importuned my bank manager, dentist and my shrink and family doctor to buy copies; after all, the monetary exchange for their services dwarfs a small purchase of my book.)
I did recently receive encouragement from Ireland, where a J. Patterson wrote me for my revised version of the essay on T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets." No one to my knowledge ever finished that essay before; I even had a standing reward of $25 for the first person who did. Afterwards this good soul ordered a signed copy of "Unexpected Light" and gave me a good report. I enjoyed the correspondence. I enjoyed the fact that he felt my treatment of Eliot was substantial and witty and fun to read. I also know, from my research, that certain Christian aspects of the poems were better elucidated in my essay than any others I could find.
In fact, everyone has given me a good report; the reviews have been uniformly positive. So where do I go from here? More reviews, more interviews, more publications? If this fellow is relatively famous and interviewed for "Poet's Market" and his book ranks far below mine (though at these numbers one or two purchases can shoot you back up the ignominious ladder of obscurity), and he has 5% of my references on Google, what should I say? That I'm better known on the Net? I suspect he makes most of his dough leading seminars, that's where the real money is for mid-level poets, while the truly famous can command $10,000 or more for a single performance--you know, Collins, Angelou and the rest.
The scale of celebrity among poets is more variable than the winners of "American Idol." Luck has much to do with it, but so does nepotism. An MFA with a close connection to a well-known poet/professor has a much better chance at ascending the ladder than a disabled doctor with few connections. That goes without saying, especially since this doctor only became serious about publishing in 1997. Yet since then I've published two books of poetry and edited one anthology while being included in many others. I even recently had "Boundaries" recognized as the best poem currently online for a week: http://bestnewpoemsonline.wordpress.com/ (see May 18).
I have some obstacles to furthering my ambition, of course. First, I live far away from metropolitan centers where venues abound. Second, I'm manic-depressive and travel can really screw with my mood. Third, I loathe to be away from my true love, Kathleen. But paramount, above all these, is the program in my head forbidding self-promotion. My mother instilled in me very early not to blow my own horn, not to brag, to rather wait for my excellence to be recognized. That's the Emily Dickinson way that many poets cling to: "I'll be noticed when I'm dead." Fat chance if you weren't noticed while alive.
To be noticed while alive can be arranged, however. For the well-heeled poet of unlimited means, an expensive New York publicist can be hired and she will get readings and reviews in that great hive considered the center of literature in these United States. Still, if the quality lacks, such a poet would be rejected by the academic community, and rightly so, but that will not stop them from out-googling, out-selling and out-maneuvering others of greater talent. I see many poets self-publishing, even in their own magazines, and acting as if they have received recognition when they have essentially granted it to themselves.
I hate cold calling people I've never met to ask for open reading dates on the Pacific Coast. I'm not looking forward to the travel in my four dates coming up (SF, Sacramento, LA, SD) require, and only two of them look like first class venues. But I will keep my word and show up, I hope, unless my energy fails.
But look at the downside again. K.F. does up to a 150 readings a year when a new book comes out and his Amazon ranking is below mine. And there's also a strange feather in my hat; my first book, "Elementary," is apparently rare enough now (only 300 copies were printed) that it sells for $189 on Amazon, and only one copy is available. So someone thinks my first book is valuable. What does that mean? I don't know. Probably something to do with book collectors who hoard obscure poets.
This all boils down to one question for me: Is it worth the work? If I knock my head against the world of poetry venues, will it result in anything of note--sales, publicity, what? Some result, yes, a few books sold here and there, not enough to cover my gas, but in the main, it's doubtful. It is probably wiser to concentrate on breaking into the august publications like Southern Review and Poetry. So far I haven't broken that glass ceiling, though to be fair, at my best, I do not think myself the inferior to those I see in there, though I often admire the work. And one wonders (despite the "blind reading" claims of so many of these journals) what would happen if my name were John Ashbery or W. S. Merwin or Mark Strand. Wouldn't these instantly be kicked upstairs by the powers that be? I do not believe the editors are fair in this regard, whatever they claim. Nepotism by reputation and previous publication within a magazine still obtain.
If I were a purist it would be all about the work, the next poem, the next song, trying to achieve that artistic perfection or Logos that all artists aspire to.
But I'm human, ah there's the rub. Like any artist I crave recognition, yet my Lutheran background tells me that ambition may be wrong, just as self-promotion is wrong. But that can't be right. Even Jesus promoted himself by miracles and street preaching. So perhaps it's the Protestant inheritance that drives me; I can't have work without result! I can't just write poetry for nothing for magazines that don't pay and come with little recognition. Or can I?
Further, Jesus promoted himself for the benefit of mankind; to what degree can I say my art does something of the same? I know my manic-depressive and love poems have helped some, but on a scale of good works--which the New Testament rejects wholesale--I can't compare to a missionary distributing food and medicines--or is my calling just different and just as important in its way? So my wife would have me think.
I have been undiscriminating about my best work, sending it to whatever e-zine suited my fancy at the time, or because of a submission call. I could have parceled my work out slowly, attacking only the best magazines. But initially I didn't have the self-confidence to do so, and the thrill of being published anywhere superseded the thrill of submitting to Poetry for ten years in hope against hope. (BTW, I do send them regular submissions, they may even recognize my name from the amount of rejections I endure.)
So what am I saying? Craig is confused. Plain confused. He loves poetry, he likes to publish, he loves giving readings, but he wonders 1) Does he have the necessary drive to promote himself like K.F.? And 2), Is it worth it?
In discussing this with my wife and editor this morning, she suggested that the best scenario is to be taken under a well-known poet's wing and mentored along. At 54 I feel I am in the mentor stage; I teach poetry online (see my website for the course offering) and every unpublished poet who has taken my course has been afterwards published, save one who didn't want to submit and likely wasn't ready.
I'm a little old for applying for fellowships at major universities for poets, and the stipend wouldn't cover expenses anyway. I don't want to uproot myself from my beloved Mendocino and go traipsing to the Iowa Writer's Workshop for instruction and connections. In truth I've only really been at this for twelve years, so perhaps, since I first published at roughly 17, I should think of myself as only 29 in the "serious poetry competition." So I would still likely benefit from a mentor. How do you get one? I suppose the way you do everything else: by endless queries.
"Cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return to you after many days."
But sometimes you only feed the ducks.
In a mixed state, between 2 Kilorats and 1 Kilobunny,
CE
He estimates that 1400 Americans may make some living through poetry, which sounds like a lot to me. Obviously this man works hard. Yet in researching him on the net he had only 5% of the references I do on Google. Apparently he has not published extensively online. Then I checked his latest book from 2007. It ranks below 1,600,000 titles on Amazon. My new book ranks just above 900,000, for comparison, rendering them likely equally obscure. I also did not recognize his name from the article.
T. S. Eliot wrote "There is no competition." Unfortunately, in this day and age of proliferating poets, Eliot is wrong. There is competition. Each poem published in a journal that rejects me is a potential place where I might have had success. Each reading booked up in advance in a major city is one reading I can't get.
Although K.F. admits that the poetry world has proliferated beyond his imaginings, from open mikes to slams, the Internet, etc., he has this to say about the art:
"What has not changed is the nepotism of the Biz and the preconceived notions of the academic sector. Most poets still teach to support themselves. There is still no one who rushes home to tell his parents that he is a poet and then is subsequently swamped with congratulations and financial support."
We all know this. Poets are not pariahs, just largely irrelevant to the larger culture. I have compared poetry to lawn bowling in this regard in past essays, "a cultural vestigial organ." Yet if one is truly infected by poetry there is no cure. I will go on writing and publishing until they take this computer from my cold dead hands. Yes, I want to be read. Yes, I would like more recognition. Yes, I have a new book to promote and eight interviews and eight reviews already. But I assure you my book is not jumping off the shelves. The most I've sold at once is five at a local reading. (I also importuned my bank manager, dentist and my shrink and family doctor to buy copies; after all, the monetary exchange for their services dwarfs a small purchase of my book.)
I did recently receive encouragement from Ireland, where a J. Patterson wrote me for my revised version of the essay on T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets." No one to my knowledge ever finished that essay before; I even had a standing reward of $25 for the first person who did. Afterwards this good soul ordered a signed copy of "Unexpected Light" and gave me a good report. I enjoyed the correspondence. I enjoyed the fact that he felt my treatment of Eliot was substantial and witty and fun to read. I also know, from my research, that certain Christian aspects of the poems were better elucidated in my essay than any others I could find.
In fact, everyone has given me a good report; the reviews have been uniformly positive. So where do I go from here? More reviews, more interviews, more publications? If this fellow is relatively famous and interviewed for "Poet's Market" and his book ranks far below mine (though at these numbers one or two purchases can shoot you back up the ignominious ladder of obscurity), and he has 5% of my references on Google, what should I say? That I'm better known on the Net? I suspect he makes most of his dough leading seminars, that's where the real money is for mid-level poets, while the truly famous can command $10,000 or more for a single performance--you know, Collins, Angelou and the rest.
The scale of celebrity among poets is more variable than the winners of "American Idol." Luck has much to do with it, but so does nepotism. An MFA with a close connection to a well-known poet/professor has a much better chance at ascending the ladder than a disabled doctor with few connections. That goes without saying, especially since this doctor only became serious about publishing in 1997. Yet since then I've published two books of poetry and edited one anthology while being included in many others. I even recently had "Boundaries" recognized as the best poem currently online for a week: http://bestnewpoemsonline.wordpress.com/ (see May 18).
I have some obstacles to furthering my ambition, of course. First, I live far away from metropolitan centers where venues abound. Second, I'm manic-depressive and travel can really screw with my mood. Third, I loathe to be away from my true love, Kathleen. But paramount, above all these, is the program in my head forbidding self-promotion. My mother instilled in me very early not to blow my own horn, not to brag, to rather wait for my excellence to be recognized. That's the Emily Dickinson way that many poets cling to: "I'll be noticed when I'm dead." Fat chance if you weren't noticed while alive.
To be noticed while alive can be arranged, however. For the well-heeled poet of unlimited means, an expensive New York publicist can be hired and she will get readings and reviews in that great hive considered the center of literature in these United States. Still, if the quality lacks, such a poet would be rejected by the academic community, and rightly so, but that will not stop them from out-googling, out-selling and out-maneuvering others of greater talent. I see many poets self-publishing, even in their own magazines, and acting as if they have received recognition when they have essentially granted it to themselves.
I hate cold calling people I've never met to ask for open reading dates on the Pacific Coast. I'm not looking forward to the travel in my four dates coming up (SF, Sacramento, LA, SD) require, and only two of them look like first class venues. But I will keep my word and show up, I hope, unless my energy fails.
But look at the downside again. K.F. does up to a 150 readings a year when a new book comes out and his Amazon ranking is below mine. And there's also a strange feather in my hat; my first book, "Elementary," is apparently rare enough now (only 300 copies were printed) that it sells for $189 on Amazon, and only one copy is available. So someone thinks my first book is valuable. What does that mean? I don't know. Probably something to do with book collectors who hoard obscure poets.
This all boils down to one question for me: Is it worth the work? If I knock my head against the world of poetry venues, will it result in anything of note--sales, publicity, what? Some result, yes, a few books sold here and there, not enough to cover my gas, but in the main, it's doubtful. It is probably wiser to concentrate on breaking into the august publications like Southern Review and Poetry. So far I haven't broken that glass ceiling, though to be fair, at my best, I do not think myself the inferior to those I see in there, though I often admire the work. And one wonders (despite the "blind reading" claims of so many of these journals) what would happen if my name were John Ashbery or W. S. Merwin or Mark Strand. Wouldn't these instantly be kicked upstairs by the powers that be? I do not believe the editors are fair in this regard, whatever they claim. Nepotism by reputation and previous publication within a magazine still obtain.
If I were a purist it would be all about the work, the next poem, the next song, trying to achieve that artistic perfection or Logos that all artists aspire to.
But I'm human, ah there's the rub. Like any artist I crave recognition, yet my Lutheran background tells me that ambition may be wrong, just as self-promotion is wrong. But that can't be right. Even Jesus promoted himself by miracles and street preaching. So perhaps it's the Protestant inheritance that drives me; I can't have work without result! I can't just write poetry for nothing for magazines that don't pay and come with little recognition. Or can I?
Further, Jesus promoted himself for the benefit of mankind; to what degree can I say my art does something of the same? I know my manic-depressive and love poems have helped some, but on a scale of good works--which the New Testament rejects wholesale--I can't compare to a missionary distributing food and medicines--or is my calling just different and just as important in its way? So my wife would have me think.
I have been undiscriminating about my best work, sending it to whatever e-zine suited my fancy at the time, or because of a submission call. I could have parceled my work out slowly, attacking only the best magazines. But initially I didn't have the self-confidence to do so, and the thrill of being published anywhere superseded the thrill of submitting to Poetry for ten years in hope against hope. (BTW, I do send them regular submissions, they may even recognize my name from the amount of rejections I endure.)
So what am I saying? Craig is confused. Plain confused. He loves poetry, he likes to publish, he loves giving readings, but he wonders 1) Does he have the necessary drive to promote himself like K.F.? And 2), Is it worth it?
In discussing this with my wife and editor this morning, she suggested that the best scenario is to be taken under a well-known poet's wing and mentored along. At 54 I feel I am in the mentor stage; I teach poetry online (see my website for the course offering) and every unpublished poet who has taken my course has been afterwards published, save one who didn't want to submit and likely wasn't ready.
I'm a little old for applying for fellowships at major universities for poets, and the stipend wouldn't cover expenses anyway. I don't want to uproot myself from my beloved Mendocino and go traipsing to the Iowa Writer's Workshop for instruction and connections. In truth I've only really been at this for twelve years, so perhaps, since I first published at roughly 17, I should think of myself as only 29 in the "serious poetry competition." So I would still likely benefit from a mentor. How do you get one? I suppose the way you do everything else: by endless queries.
"Cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return to you after many days."
But sometimes you only feed the ducks.
In a mixed state, between 2 Kilorats and 1 Kilobunny,
CE
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Chinese Brush Experiment Blog
I wrote the below without revision; it is what spilled out. I call this the "Chinese Brush Experiment," since the same is true of Chinese calligraphy and most painting, Japanese as well.
I haven't blogged in so long it seems a ring in a tree, a rose bare-limbed then blossoming, you know, the way a boat rocks in the water under the harbor lights, powered by pillows and gravity. And the gatekeeper always lurks with his skleteton keys to remind us of our anti-gravity, the digital blink of death, cancelling, cancelling, but you must believe! You must fight, fight, fight!
The warrior solves some things, the magician more. Better to twist your perspective into the guise of the gnarled than force the limbs to bend toward you.
Goldfish: the sacrifice of children.
Uninhibited writing is a phantasm. How can you write without editing? We edit as we write and good writers edit afterwards. Edit too much and you squeeze the juice out of a thing.
I love Sinatra. 50s are best.
How a wax myrtle tree became an anaconda in resisting sedge and a bog.
A bog does have a slow inlet and outlet, though no obvious streams. I saw a carniverous plant in Sholars Bog, the sundew. Sticky, sticky, sticky. Don't want to be no mosquito flittin there, no.
I'm too tired to put up my latest links.
Gotta get serious about book promotion, pull out all the stops, crash the dam, splinter the fort, suck the last drop of water from a rock, all the usual applications of perseverance.
All this stuff about Ruth Padel. I've met her and published her; I like her a great deal. I think she did indeed make an error in judgment, but a Freudian error. She didn't really want the post. She did not think she merited it unconsciously. Psychoanalysis can still be helpful at times.
1 Kilobunny,
CE
I haven't blogged in so long it seems a ring in a tree, a rose bare-limbed then blossoming, you know, the way a boat rocks in the water under the harbor lights, powered by pillows and gravity. And the gatekeeper always lurks with his skleteton keys to remind us of our anti-gravity, the digital blink of death, cancelling, cancelling, but you must believe! You must fight, fight, fight!
The warrior solves some things, the magician more. Better to twist your perspective into the guise of the gnarled than force the limbs to bend toward you.
Goldfish: the sacrifice of children.
Uninhibited writing is a phantasm. How can you write without editing? We edit as we write and good writers edit afterwards. Edit too much and you squeeze the juice out of a thing.
I love Sinatra. 50s are best.
How a wax myrtle tree became an anaconda in resisting sedge and a bog.
A bog does have a slow inlet and outlet, though no obvious streams. I saw a carniverous plant in Sholars Bog, the sundew. Sticky, sticky, sticky. Don't want to be no mosquito flittin there, no.
I'm too tired to put up my latest links.
Gotta get serious about book promotion, pull out all the stops, crash the dam, splinter the fort, suck the last drop of water from a rock, all the usual applications of perseverance.
All this stuff about Ruth Padel. I've met her and published her; I like her a great deal. I think she did indeed make an error in judgment, but a Freudian error. She didn't really want the post. She did not think she merited it unconsciously. Psychoanalysis can still be helpful at times.
1 Kilobunny,
CE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
