In Praise of the Ordinary

In an ordinary place on an ordinary day, several people get together to choose poems for a poetry journal.

In an extraordinary place on an extraordinary day, several people get together to choose which hateful, ignorant acts to codify into law.

In which group of several people do you think there is the most discussion about the merits of the words on paper, the most empathy, the most concern for the unseen lives that will be touched, the most regrets for the many no's that must be said?

Why bother with the poetry at all, when there is such an uphill battle to be waged against the ignorance and hatefulness?

If I need to answer that question for you, you might want to look around and ask yourself how you came to be in that extraordinary place.

*

have it both ways
raven    crow
historians all

"No Hope" Is Not the Same As Without Hope

I've been busy teaching six college courses...Anything happen this week?

Seriously, I've been busy teaching, and everything that happened in my classrooms has provided a stark contrast to everything that has happened in the Oval Office and other Trump-tainted venues. Focused and engaged discussion by adults who want to learn about one another's world view, versus...well, versus the exact opposite in every possible way. So I've had a great week. And not.

And that (added to the previous couple of months) has caused me to rethink the concept of hope. I don't think I believe in it, if I ever did (I am a gloomy poet, after all). And it's not hope, so much as magical thinking...That's what I am really trying to understand: The line between hope (inspirational, bring-out-the-best beliefs, uplifting, influencing in a positive way of current behavior) versus magical thinking (delusional, bring-out-the-denial beliefs, paralyzing, influencing in a negative way of current behavior).

I cannot hope my students do well, and then sit back for fifteen weeks, signing "executive orders" to the effect of "That chapter shall be read" and "That paper shall be written" and "That poem shall be explicated." Old, odd habits of hope must be put off. The new abnormal must be met with something equally as new. It was met with something new last weekend in cities all over the world. It has been in my classes this past week: a new energy, perhaps coming from me, perhaps from my students--I'm certain only that I felt some little glimmer of renewed effort to do something, even if that something is learn. That's yuge, right? Into the mist, old habit of hope.

*

into the mist old habit of hope
into the mist odd habit of hope
into the missed odd habit of hope
into the missed odd haven't of hope
into that missed odd haven't of hope
into that missed odd haven't any hope
isn't that missed odd haven't any hope

And, Singing, Made

And then sometimes, these things just happen right outside your window.

This morning, I was reminded (by George!) of Wallace Stevens's poem "The Idea of Order at Key West," specifically the lines,

                                            ...Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

And then sometimes, a poem just happens right outside your window.

*

by
every
moment

invited
to
dance

what
better
grace

Notes to Self

Notes to self, because self is a little overwhelmed these days to remember on its own:

1.  Beauty is there, in every moment. You may need to look within to find it, but really, it's there before your eyes. The challenge is to see it and name it and give it staying power through art.

2.  Yes, beauty can be squandered, damaged, defiled, wasted, even destroyed. But it also has a way of passing on its own. Try to see the passage less as passage and more as transition. A new beauty will arise.

3.  Be an agent of arising, not an agent of squandering.

4.  Seek the bridge between the beauty within and the beauty without. That is the thing tyrants always miss.

5.  Every day is a new season.

6.  Most of all, remember, remember, remember: We name ourselves. The word hole that spews carnage is the word hole of carnage incarnate.


*

winter meadow
the grace
of broken things

Shame On Us

I almost feel as if narrative poetry has died. There is no story to tell, at least not until we can answer the unanswerable "why" of how we arrived in this story-deprived place, a place of fear and depravity and lies.

And so, in place of narrative, stream-of-consciousness, perhaps a little word association, a souvenir of story in a place with no beginning, no middle, no end. If not story, then look around and describe what is outside, what is within. The connection between the two (without, within) will offer the possibility of something sublime.

Shame on us for killing off story. Story was what kept us human.

*

why remember winter why remember flood
why come to the meadow to remember
winter flood why crow why river
winter flood winter meadow meadow flood
river crow remember why remember

Thin Ice

There is no such thing as ordinary, I tell my students, usually in the context of teaching a poem or short story. Every work of art celebrates something, even if the work is also a catharsis of pain, anxiety, grief.

Too often, we must simultaneously celebrate and mourn.

Here and gone. Hoped for and feared. Together; alone.

Overcome, then overcome again.

And so we go forward in a way that feels like going way, way back. Let us call it creative mourning. Let us think of it as thin ice. May we find one another on the other side.


*

a
secret
out
and
maybe
back
thin
ice

The Same Sky

Just a quick little "doodle collage" as I was thinking more about translation, how to smooth out language in a way that doesn't impose idiom, meaning, or meaninglessness onto a poem, how to intuit the poet's intent from half a world away...

Do any of us speak the same language?




Do we even understand ourselves?

Is the surreal more real than real?

Do we live beneath the same sky?

*

texture of paper
the way it isn't so much
sky

*

speed of light
more solid than
sky looks

*

the blue
of sorts
sky
frayed
a little
around the
perhaps a
soul