211

I wake up this morning, and I know it happened: I was here. But I can't help thinking that dazed: It's all so very surreal... Yesterday, the wrap up of the festival, the parcel I carry in my heart from Kimiko Hahn, the gift of new eyes and language, ways of looking at things, and certainly a new urgency; the phenomenal experience of witnessing Gerald Stern's reading, the beauty of his sense of language and, oh, what a riot of a personality (I want to watch him again and again and embrace him for being the wonder that he is).

Today I fly back, return to that corner of the earth I call Home, embrace the husband I've been without for the past six days, snuggle up against the dogs and the cats that make up our menagerie, sigh at the clutter and fuss, and settle into the routine of being back in school. I'll have to push forth to catch up, but it won't take much; the first week is always so tentative, even in graduate school. And it's back to where I was before, but that was a good place too. (Just a little colder and minus the ocean. And Hahn and Stern, who were important touchpoints for me at this year's festival. And Espada. Mustn't forget his opening night performance. Oh, so much to hold dear!)

I'll be back soon, in warmer clothes, and let you know how the transition to real life is treating me.

xo

210: PBPF, Day 6

I'd first fallen in love with Kimiko Hahn's poetry in 2002 at the University of Minnesota's Poetry Festival (which meant to be annual, but never got beyond that first year).

Currently, she's working on a collection of poems using the science section of The New York Times (I believe) as her inspiration; she has a series of entomological poems, which, of course, excites me, not only because my dear friend Chris is an entomologist, but because that friendship has led to at least three bug poems of my own, and more in the not-so-distant future.

Her own poetry is crisp, and her last book, The Narrow Road to the Interior was inspired by the zhuihitsu of Sei Shonagon. I suspect I've found something to immerse myself in next, this curiosity, just as soon as I polish up that chapbook manuscript of poems about my grandfather's Alzheimer's.


Gerald Stern asked me if I had a gin and tonic in my bag. I was first in line for my books to be signed, and that's what he said to me, before he asked if my stack was my father's or uncle's collection. No, I demurred. I had probably forgotten my name already, so flustered was I.

His reading was wonderful. He came on stage, already telling the audience Campbell McGrath's introduction was a lie, that he never scolded the men in uniform at some event (before the war in Iraq, there was some kind of gathering of poets and writers and in the same hotel, there was a black tie ball for some sort of armed forces, and there Gerry, as they were all calling him, went off, which I can only imagine), and he tossed his bag onto the floor and pulled out his books and told these wonderful narratives between poems, leaving the audience laughing. His last poem, he muttered, "Where is that fucker?" Gerald Stern! And his poetry is so full of life and verve and celebration and everything that is good about the written word. I can see why my dear friend Eireann seems to love him so.


There were moments during the reading I could feel my heart leap up, I sat on my hands, and forced myself still; I wanted to leap onto the stage and embrace him, embrace the man who could write like that. Oh, and at the end? He kicked his bag across the stage to Miles; there's no way he was bending over to retrieve it, and we all rose to our feet to give a standing ovation.

Anyway, I took many photos, probably too many, but I couldn't seem to stop, and you can see more here, though many are blurry, which is kind of sweet too, and they're blurry because those lights "are too damn bright, can't we do something about this?" and what Gerry Stern wants, he gets from an audience of silly fawners such as ourselves. And maybe you'll meticulously stroll through them as I did, or glance at the thumbnails, or maybe you'll secret them away, or ignore me completely.

But I can say this tonight: it was another magical week at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.

Lucky life, indeed! I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to work with Kimiko Hahn, who not only gave her tough love to specific poems, but also trained our eyes for future poems, I am blessed to have worked in a group of strong poets (how often do you appreciate all of your classmates?), I am bless that I could feel the world fall away as certain poets took the stage (Martin Espada, Anne Marie Macari, Gregory Orr, Kimiko Hahn, and Gerald Stern especially). Oh, and the ocean! I moaned about seeing the ocean back in August, and now I have it, bottled up, I'm bringing it back to set on my windowsill so I can remember the shape of these days.

209: last day of class

You can have your own glimpse of Kimko Hahn in this video from the Jackson Heights Poetry Festival:

208: PBPF, Day 5

Evening's Reader: Dara Wier. Her poetry plays with convention and expectation.


Evening's Reader: Gregory Orr, whose personal story has a tragic moment, which is told in The Blessing, which recounts the story of when he accidentally shot and killed his brother at the age of twelve. His own work is quiet and lyrical, and in workshop, I hear he is good and pushes the poet to explain why certain choices were made. Understanding this motivation could help strengthen the next draft, and the next.

I am learning, slowly, how to package these messages I've been given this week: how to give myself the vocabulary to remember. I knew much of this before, the radiance and the close examination, the ways in which to do it, but I hadn't been shown how, hadn't had exactly the right tools. I have much to mull over and process and hopes to bring it into my own work and the critiques I give of others'--to be more of use. And despite any difficulties I may have had with the workshop last semester, to bring those tools into seminar and make the best of a learning experience. To be of use. To myself and others.

207: sea birds in flight

I love the ones just escaping the frame. More sea birds, on land and in there air, as well as more of the conference here.

206: PBPF, Day 4

Today is a day for hibernating: a small headache is touring my brain and I have a small stack of books requesting immediate attention, please.

I chose to take Kimiko Hahn's workshop because I'd heard she was a good instructor, that she was tough, and that is exactly what I've needed. I'm learning, though, that it's all about how it's phrased. I need to learn how to process those things: "I love how you...." is saying, "The poem is strongest..." or, as Kimiko says, "Where is the poem most radiant?" She says she loves highlighters, and in this way, we can visually see where it pops, so to speak. She'll tell us that a certain phrase is "not interesting," or "not as interesting as [another phrase]," or that something "doesn't do [the next line / the poem / the preceding lines /etc.] justice." We aren't allowed to nitpick or even firmly edit--"that's [the poet's] problem, not ours." We're not there to edit, but give suggestions. There are many potential drafts, and it seems as if no first draft is a failure, but loaded with potential. Time is strict, tight, and you could be called on even if you seem fully engrossed in re-reading or had slipped out to go to the ladies', so be prepared to have a suggestion, an indication of radiance, a new direction in mind.

We've also been doing the "stealing assignments," where we read a poem (today's: Mark Doty's "A Green Crab's Shell") and consider all the possibilities for creating an assignment. Even if we don't love the poem (and I enjoyed this one), we can still ask ourselves what the poet is doing and how that poet is doing it.

My biggest issue I'm trying to overcome is the second draft, the third, the fourth. I have a fear that I will muck it up even more and maybe not even notice. It's often easier for me, in workshop, to see the possibilities in others' poems, but in my own, it is hard to break away from that first narrative, the first run through. I don't claim to think it's perfect, but I don't want to make it worse.

But in this workshop, there's a lovely attitude of: try three different endings, put it in a drawer. Come back in a week and see which one works.

And why else am I here? Why else am I in an MFA program but to learn to take risks? I just need to remember to put the previous drafts in a folder, and let time do its thing.

205: PBPF, Day 3

Reading: Anne Marie Macari. Her poems are quiet, natural wonders. I'm looking forward to reading her work. One of these days I will be clever and read the complete works of these poets ahead of time, but for now, I'll have to be satisfied with just reading the works of the workshop leader. Her own work has much similarity to my own interests in mine--the body, the natural world.


Reading: It was hard to pick a favorite of Thomas Lux reading, so feel free to wander on over to Flickr and check out the others in this year's festival set; he is truly a wonder to watch and listen to and reminds me much of a Jim Hensen creation. He told a story of his twenty one year old daughter skydiving, and I wondered what it might have been like to have Thomas Lux as a father. He came up to talk about how it's nice to have all of us kindred spirits together, and how he's known Gregory Orr "since we were baby poets, and now we're old, decrepit poets." Later, when I had his early works signed he said, "Oh, so you're going to read my baby poems. You know, they're not very good."

I think his work begs to be heard from him--maybe there are three categories of poets (no, more than that, obviously, but for what I'm saying here, let's make it three): the spoken word sort whose work belongs on the stage (almost exclusively), the academic poet whose work is best on the page, and that sort of in-between, the poet who won't appear at poetry slams, but whose poetry lives so much better in the open air, in the narrative out-loudness of the poet. That last is what I believe Thomas Lux to be. I probably wouldn't go on about him if I were telling you about my experience of reading him on the page, but he has been known to say things along the lines of wanting domesticated animals to understand his poems--he is not interested in tangled, high-fallutin' poems, and I hear when you are in workshop with him, he is one of the folks that will do the closest reading, making sure each syllable counts, and though it might take a great long while, your poem will have gone through the wringer (and, you hope, is better for it).

204: PBPF, Day 2

Craft talk: Gregory Orr spoke of the importance of the quest in poetry, and spoke of "looking outward to look inward."

"Do so through gathering an anthology, a Personal Anthology: those poems you most love. To gain insight into yourself (and your Quest) by looking away from yourself at those poems you most love. This personal Anthology is a composite self-portrait. Yourself in the language-flesh of other poets' poems."

Emerson: "Make your own Bible."

He spoke of how we are to collect these poems, but don't bother with an introduction, with over-analyzing: instead, spend that time handwriting the poems, so that the poem becomes a part of the body. Memorize, read aloud. Share.

It's something I have done already, though only the collecting, and it's still a process, only just beginning. I need to ingest more, return again and again, copy it out longhand, see how those words in that arrangement feel at my fingertips.

(The voyeur in me wants to see others' poem-diaries, their bibles, so to speak.)


Craft talk: Denise Duhamel spoke of humor in poetry. She began by letting us know Dennis Leary was one of her instructors when she was in college, before all his fame and fortune, when class was canceled and instead the students went to his routines and analyzed them the next day. She led us in a choral singing of poems to common tunes, read a prose poem with a clever voice called "Personal" by Sally Dawidoff and David Lehman. What I loved most about her talk was the exuding personality--a kind of cheer and honesty that broke away from that academic seriousness that pervades the poetry world so often. Surprises are good.

I also liked this one: "Lana Turner has collapsed!" by Frank O'Hara. (Listen)


Evening's reader: Denise Duhamel came back to read, and I appreciated being able to hear her speak about humor, followed a few hours later with her reading many humorous poems. The ones that seemed the strongest for me, as a listener, were more recent ones about her parents, who were in an escalator accident (indeed!), and the poems seemed emotionally right for such a moment, for the kind of reflection on rehabilitation (something about her father collapsing and her mother getting scalped) and horror that probably ocurred in those days.


Evening's reader: Martin Espada was not entirely a surprise to me, but I know he was to most of the audience: I went to see him at the Loft's Poetry Festival back in autumn, and he is clearly a gifted storyteller. Oh, oh! I cannot urge you enough to go see Martin Espada if you have the chance. His poems are ringing through my head: "Alabanza" and "calle San Sebastian" especially. He sang those poems, he danced those poems, and the audience, as we left, murmured at what a glory it was to witness this. Edit to add: also, I had forgotten (how could I?) that he had gotten a standing ovation.

And lucky Minnesotans: he is coming to Hamline in March, he told me.

I remember last year, when Sharon Olds was the draw for me, and I adore her still, but I also got to come home with another poet whose poems will appear in my own Bible--Claudia Emerson. And Martin Espada will be there too, and Kimkio Hahn, who I am working with this week, as will others I've met: Carolyn Forche and Maxine Kumin, Robert Bly and Joyce Sutphen, and those I have not: Anne Sexton, Pablo Neruda, Anna Akhmatova, Adrienne Rich, Liesel Mueller, and on. (This list needs to grow.)

203: wandering the beach

Just a few of my favorites; many, many more will be uploaded on flickr, but not just yet, else my eyes might cross. You can see this week in this (growing) set, and you can see last year at this time in this set.

I'm off to tonight's reading, and then I hope to settle and, at least, post photographs from this afternoon's talks and tonight's readings, if nothing else, though I may be able to prop my eyes open long enough for a few befuddled comments.

202: How I Spent the Inauguration

Some are in the crowded Crest Theatre watching the inauguration projected onto a big screen, but the enormous television here was enough for me: the beloved turkey and brie croissant I'd dreamed about since my last visit here and Sambazon's Organic Acai smoothie, my bed freshly made and poetry dancing through my brain.

I'm back from morning workshop, where Kimiko Hahn did not hesitate to peel apart the poems, giving good advice, little snippets I jotted into my notebook:

- In a list poem, each element needs to be equally extraordinary, or "out it goes"
- Isolate each item in a list poem and check it against the rest
- Where is the poem most honest? Where do we trust it the most?
- In revision, attempt different drafts--not just one new draft--put them in a drawer for a few weeks and see which one works the best.
- If you have trouble with titles, come up with five very different ones. Give it some time, see where those take you.
- Watch out for: overused phrases, phrases that promise too much
- The use of unique, repetitive articles (in this case, "a pleasure" and later, "a confession") to help poem resonate
- Be careful of the melodramatic moment
- If you use repetition in your poem, try altering it to give new meaning
- Splice in phrases (words spoken by characters in poem, etc.) to focus poem
- Some poems need a radiant spark, a surprise to pull items together
- Rule of thumb: know your threshold for repetition (or you could lose your reader, but also know it can be an incantation ("She Had Some Horses" by Joy Harjo)
- Hahn also brought up the poem "Skunk Hour" by Robert Lowell, which is essentially a panorama and has a moment of focus where the speaker states, "My mind is not right" and continues on--and in this, it is an act of telling in order to show.

I write this as Elizabeth Alexander reads her poem. (See a video on preparation for the event.) I think of words, "spiny or smooth," as she puts it, and I'm so glad to be here at this time. I hadn't realized only a few others have read at inaugurations / related events: Robert Frost, who recited a poem from memory when the sun and the wind prevented his first to be seen; James Dickey, that famous jerk with talent; and Maya Angelou, whose snippets of poems grace Hallmark cards as well as Miller Williams, who I had not heard of previously (though I did know of his daughter, Lucinda Williams). Last year, I read Alexander's collection American Sublime, which I really enjoyed, as I began the Vermont College's poetry reading list.

Today is so absolutely filled with hope for me: a re-energizing of my own writing self, a much needed respite from cold weather, and this, oh this, today when hope becomes president.

I'll be back again, after craft talks, a trip to the ocean, and tonight's reading. I'm sure I'll have much more to say.

xo

201: PBPF, Day 1

Today: last night's sleep didn't get me far; perhaps calling it a three or four hour nap would do it more justice. Flight delayed in Atlanta; slept from before take off until the touch down jolted me awake, me thinking: that's a bit of turbulence. Went to the wrong hotel, and an eighty dollar taxi drive later, I am an hour late to the opening night. Despite all this, I am settled, signed up for a conference with Kimiko Hahn, contemplating what on earth I could say out loud that would be worth her fifteen minutes, thinking of how I already feel the buzz of jump-starting. Tonight, a book pile to consider.

And a poem, for you:

Ode to the Maggot
--- by Yosef Komuyakaa

Brother of the blowfly
And godhead, you work magic
Over battlefields,
In slabs of bad pork

And flophouses. Yes, you
Go to the root of all things.
You are sound & mathematical.
Jesus, Christ, you're merciless

With the truth. Ontological & lustrous,
You cast spells on beggars & kings
Behind the stone door of Caesar's tomb
Or split trench in a field of ragweed.

No decree or creed can outlaw you
As you take every living thing apart. Little
Master of earth, no one gets to heaven
Without going through you first.


Kimiko Hahn gave us a packet of four poems, and the idea is for us to use them as "stealing" prompts, as she put it. Look at the poem, figure out what you see, craft-wise, then turn it into a prompt:

- Write a poem that is a direct address.
- Write a poem that is a direct address and reveal who that subject is in the beginning. Or the end.
- Write a poem about something appalling and use an elegant style. Or vice versa.
- Make a list / definition poem of a particular object.
- Use heroic diction for something thing-ish.

She spoke of how workshops are to go: instead of those nitpicky line edits, we are instead to open ourselves up to listening, to knowing where the poem is working the hardest. She pointed out how revision isn't about polishing and fixing always as much as it's about making choices.

That sort of thinking takes a great weight off the poet's shoulders. Instead of finding a way to say it right, you find a way to fit it all together that works for you, that makes your heart sing. My heart singing? In my own work?

Trish Hampl talked about how we often think of life after the first draft as: "Fix it, stupid." But it's not about that. It's about re-singing, re-assigning, re-assessing, re-writing, re-vision, not about repair. Not in the frozen pipe / cracked windshield sort of way anyway.

It is night, and despite my hour and a half nap on the way here, I think I can get myself to sleep by midnight, wake to breakfast in the lobby on wicker chairs and between vibrantly mango colored walls.

47: In the Morning

This morning, there was no alarm, my battery dead. I rose at the sound of another pounding on the door, scrambled out of bed, and midway through my shower, the bleeping of the smoke alarm. I had only just soaped my hair (isn't that the way?) and decided I refused to wander out of the building with gloppy hair and clingingly damp pajama pants. It was only in my room of the cabin anyway; the steam from my shower, despite flung-open windows, had startled those bits of plastic into action. But the morning has begun, and now, post-lunch, it is time to finish my shower. Conditioner. Soap. A shower in two parts.

Yesterday was a glorious tour of this part of the northwoods: Knife River to Gooseberry Falls to the Split Rock Lighthouse to Duluth, where we met the poet Louis Jenkins and ate at the Lake Avenue Cafe. I am still percolating, a few tidbits wending their way into my notebook.

This morning we watched a video on Anna Akhmatova, one I had seen before in MDB's class titled The Poet in the World where I first learned of Neruda and Milosz and so many other poets I consider old standards now. After, we met up to discuss my evolving chapbook, which is still, for the most part, first drafts with a few tinkered half second drafts. I confessed my fear of moving past the first draft (I don't know which darlings to kill sometimes), and he gave me very solid suggestions on experimenting with stanza breaks and lineation. Muscularity too, though these are words echoing back to conversations with Eireann and Karen--but how to trim away the too much detail. I am swamped with so many things I ought to be doing (oh, M.Ed how I've begun to despise you), but all I can think of, at this very moment, is that I want to tinker, to break out something a bit larger than the putty knife.

There has been a bit of muttering, a bit of conversation about how poetry can be under-appreciated in this country--how in other countries, poets like Neruda and Akhmatova and the Polish poets can be jailed, can be ousted, can make such a huge difference. At their funerals, people flock; at their houses, inspiration is found. MDB spoke of how it is said ours is a country of greed, that our news comes from an urgent media. It was also brought up--the wee money, the sad publication, the feather-in-the-Grand-Canyon-echo it is. And we spoke of how we write what drives us, and we write because our heart tells us to. We write out of compulsion.

46: Percolate

Today was beautiful on many, many levels. And I would natter on about it for you, for me, but I am simply too exhausted and that pillow is beckoning me oh so sweetly. So as I said sleepily in the car on the way back to Cloquet: "I shall tuck it all away in the poetry part of my brain and let it percolate and report back to you tomorrow."

Let it be so.