Five Things I've Learned as a Poetry Editor

In May of last year I started working on the Mud Season Review, a new online (and soon coming out with our first print edition!) journal. The journal is an outgrowth of the Burlington Writer's Workshop, itself a fantastic community resource for writers here in my new homeland. The journal strives to bring some of the workshop's sense of writers supporting and in dialogue with each other into the literary journal format, and I'm super-proud of what we're doing.

I started out as one of two Assistant Poetry Editors, responsible for reviewing what's passed on by our readers, and then participating with the senior editors in their final decision process. Through various perambulations, I've now become a poetry Co-Editor. Having spent a lot of the past few years on the "submitting" side of the process, it's fascinating to now be on the other end, and I wanted to pass on a few key things I've learned to my fellow submitting poets out there:

1. It is such a high-volume business, rejections don't (necessarily) mean you're bad: I get discouraged by my literary rejections sometimes, for sure. And I knew, intellectually, what the numbers were like. But now, from the other side, I really appreciate it. In the six months since we started, we've had around 570 poetry submissions, usually of 3-5 poems each. And we've put out five online editions so far, with maybe 5 poems in each. Math tells me that (5*5)/(3*570)= 25/1,710= 1.47%. The numbers for Mud Season Review are not atypical-many journals publish more pieces, but they also get more submissions per issue. In other words, your poem could be in the top 2% of submissions an editor is receiving and still not make the cut-off of what they have room to publish.

2. You need to bring your best work-every detail matters: See above- given that you can be in the top 2% of what a journal receives and still miss the cutoff, what you submit needs to be your very, very best. Send your favorite poems, not your "maybe this will work". First (or even second or third) drafts probably won't get you there. That misspelling that you missed, or awkward line that you know doesn't quite work, but it probably doesn't matter? It might. Knowing this now has actually sharply re-focused me on the quality of submissions I send out.

3. Form is really important: By which I mean the physical form of the poem. Having read literally hundreds of poems every month, I've noticed that one of the primary things that can throw me off is the format of the poem. Even if I really like the poet's voice, and am intrigued by the content and appreciate the imagery, word choice, etc., a physically difficult format can keep me from connecting with it. Things like line breaks, regularity of structure (even if the structure itself is unorthodox, does it at least have internal consistency in how it's working?), and spacing or other devices to keep the flow of reading going make a big difference. Again, knowing this leaves me chastened about some of my submissions over the years, and has got me thinking about how I can improve.  

4. Your cover letter probably doesn't matter, so don't spend too much time on it: We use Submittable, which separates out the content (i.e. the poems) from the personal note or cover letter that accompanies them. So as not to prejudice my reading, I usually don't look at the letters until after I've read, ranked and made my comments for the team. Talking with the other editors, they generally do the same. This is not to say that I don't appreciate a good cover letter, but it's not going to influence my read, so it shouldn't be a major focus of your time and effort. Short and sincere will probably more than do.

5. There are a lot of really good poets out there: Since I wasn't a first-line Reader, I didn't read all of those 1,700 poems myself. But I did read a significant number of them, and it turns out there are a lot of really good poets out there. And they aren't necessarily the established poets. I won't name names, but I have often appreciated the work of new or lightly-published poets over people with impressive-looking credentials. Since it is such a numbers game (see #1 above), you may need to submit a lot to get your work out there. But don't give up- there are so many good poets whose work deserves to be read. You could be one of them!


  

And the Goodreads Challenge score is...

31 out of 52! Well, I've learned that these things can be very valuable once you let go of self-flagellation if you don't make it. Because the thing is, you end up achieving more with an ambitious goal, even if you fall short of it, than if you aim low. I'll keep it brief here, since I haven't done an update in a while. The final books were:

When The Past Is Present  (David Richo, 2008, 224 pp.)
A friend recommended this to me two years ago or so, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. David Richo uses conventional psychology, Jungian psychology and Buddhist concepts to explore how issues from childhood and past relationships can cloud our present relationships, and how we can learn to recognize and process them so we can be truly present. If I hadn't already done A LOT of this kind of work in the past few years, this book would have landed on me like a thunderbolt. It strongly affected and challenged me as it was. Recommended for anyone who has had issues with unresolved issues from the past affecting the present. In other words, everyone.     

Sliver  (Dave Morrison, 2008, 108 pp.)
Here's the deal: If you're a 40ish former rock musician from New York & Boston who currently lives with your wife in my dreaming-of-living-there state Maine, and I run across your book during a trip to Portland, Maine just as I'm ready for a new volume of poetry, I'm going to get it. As it turns out, in subject matter and sensibility, Morrison is my kind of poet even if the form of his poetry doesn't always work for me.   

Foundation Trilogy  (Isaac Asimov, 1961, 678 pp.)
We'd read several things by Asimov in my late great Sci-fi Book Club, but we never got around to this, widely considered to be one of his masterworks. About the only thing I can say about it that isn't superlative is that the dialogue ends up sounding a little dated (1950sish, in fact) at times. Otherwise, you have an epic sweep of future history, political intrigue, twists and surprises, and, as always, Asimov's shrewd and compassionate understanding of how people are.    

Powers: Roleplay  (Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming, 2001, 110 pp.)
If you have a fondness for superhero comics and you haven't read Powers yet, I highly recommend it. The series centers upon a pair of cops (one of them with an intriguing secret past) who investigate crimes involving super-powered individuals. In this volume, they're investigating the murders of a group of college kids who were role-playing superheroes. Bendis is a superb writer, Oeming is a superb (though highly stylized) artist, and the whole thing is just fun. Get on board!      

Ultimate Spider-man Ultimate Collection II  (Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagley, 2009, 308 pp.)
And here have Brian Michael Bendis' second appearance on this list, in a volume that brings together issues 14-27 of Ultimate Spider-man. Marvel's used-to-be-great "Ultimate" line took characters from Marvel's mainstream Universe and retold their tales in a setting stripped of the main continuity's decades of story-line, giving things a chance to be fresh and new again. So here we get Peter Parker back to his roots, a teenager learning the ropes as Spider-man while also dealing with crushes, bullies and high school, and in a more modernized setting. Good clean fun all around, including the most realistic portrayal ever of what would really happen if the totally-human Kraven fought the strongly super-powered Spider-man. My only complaint is that the teen love melodrama got a little needlessly thick at the end. Ah well, kids. What can you do?      

JLA Vol. 1: New World Order  (Grant Morrison, Howard Porter & John Dell, 1997, 93 pp.)
Let's not dodge the truth: for a lot of the 70s and 80s, DC sucked. Then, starting in the 90s, several creators stepped in, remembered that they were dealing with the world's greatest heroes, and started to have fun with them again. Grant Morrison's work with the JLA was one of the signposts of this, and here we have the first volume of his run as writer for the group. The artists, well, let's just say they haven't quite caught up yet (that will come later in the series), but the tale is solid good old-fashioned fun.   

Superman/Batman Vol 6: Torment  (Alan Burnett, Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs, 2009, 160 pp.)
I do love my Superman/Batman. They're both such icons, and there's so much that somebody who understands how to bring out the contrast between them can do, purely in terms of characterization, to make a great story. Throw in some cosmic shenanigans and great artists, and you get a grand tale here. It's marred a little bit by tie-ins to the most recent grand Universe-shaking hullabaloo that DC was doing at the time, but otherwise is a rollicking good time.    

So there we are for 2012. And what's on the docket for 2013? (But first, let's pause here for a second to say, "Holy crap! It's going to be 2013! How did that happen? And are there flying cars yet?") I don't think I'll be doing the Goodreads challenge again, instead I'll be challenging myself to read the collected works of two of my muses, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. To whit, Ginsberg's collected poems 1947-1997, and all the works Kerouac published in his lifetime, plus two published after. More description to follow...

And Happy New Year! See you in 2013!

Book Reviews: The Gambler, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, The Song of Eve, At The Drive-In Volcano

All right, so, on the downside, I haven't updated my Goodreads 2012 reading challenge progress in a while (currently 26 out of the 52 goal by the way). On the plus side, though, my delay has given this review some range. For a couple of years now I've had the practice of rotating my reading between fiction, nonfiction and spiritual. I also am reading at least one poetry collection at any given time. Today's review will have examples of all four!

The Gambler  (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1867, 100 pp.)
Some years ago, I was taking a writing workshop. When it became my turn to present excerpts of a novel I was working on that involved sexual and romantic addiction, one of the other participants commented that she almost stopped reading, because it seemed too prurient. But then she continued, and said it reminded her of The Gambler. That was both one of the most gratifying things I ever heard in a writing workshop, and the source of a mental footnote to check out Dostoyevsky's- Really long short story? Rather short novel? Novella? -one day. And what a great day it has turned out to be! I always marvel at his ability to write from the point of view of a thoroughly un-admirable character and yet remain sympathetic and compelling. That is in fine display here, and in fact the whole piece seems to be devoid of any admirable characters at all. And yet the descent into obsession (and one could argue that a love addiction precedes any gambling addiction for him) of the young Russian tutor and the tangled fortunes of the Russian aristocrats he works for as they vacation at a German resort is so tenderly and accurately rendered that it works. Nobody presents the darkness of the human heart with as much love and forgiveness as Dostoyevsky. There is obsidian humor and twisted beauty throughout this small masterpiece, and I thoroughly recommend it.        

The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects  (Edward J. Ruppelt, 1956/1960, 260 pp.)
When I saw that I could download this classic of Ufology for a pittance on my Nook, I was very excited. Edward Ruppelt was the head of the Air Force's UFO investigation, Project Blue Book, from 1951-1953. After leaving that post and retiring from the Air Force, he wrote a book reviewing his tenure. And it makes for very fine reading- I was particularly impressed by his fluid conversational style, it kind of makes we wish he'd written more before his untimely death from heart attack at age 37. Or, you know, lived more. Throughout the book he maintains a great balance between irresponsible credulity and knee-jerk skepticism, and in fact derides both. What one comes away with principally is three things. 1. Because of bureaucracy and miscommunication, the Air Force's attitude toward the investigation, and the resources devoted toward it would often lurch in different directions. This produced a lot of the behavior that outside observers attributed to "cover-up". 2. When the investigation was taken seriously and conducted thoroughly, a lot of seeming mysteries could be identified, but a significant portion of unidentifieds remained. 3. These undientifieds never produced the kind of "proof" that could definitively settle the question of what they were (you can sense his frustration with this intangibility growing throughout his tenure with Blue Book), but many unknowns had excellent, multiple witnesses, and were clearly things outside of any conventional explanation. This is where his original analysis in 1956 more or less ends up. The 1960 edition includes an additional three chapters that have always been controversial since they A) are much more skeptical and B) came out just before his death. Reading them here, I have to say, it is notable how they not only strike a totally different tone than his original ending, they actually put forward multiple statements directly contradicting positions he took earlier, with little explanation of the change in his thinking. I'd be curious to see the last three chapters put through some kind of word-choice/sentence structure analysis to see if the same person even wrote them. And on that note, I will leave you with the mystery!      

The Song of Eve: Mythology And Symbols of The Goddess  (Manuela Dunn-Mascetti, Simon & Schuster, 1990, 239 pp.)
As documented in earlier reviews, in the last few years I've become increasingly interested in exploring the feminine side of the divine.  So when I came across this book at a Friends of the Library used book sale in San Francisco a few years back, I eagerly snatched it up (especially eagerly at the price of $3!). Well worth it-the book itself is lushly beautiful, full of color illustrations drawn from classical and contemporary works of art. These are used to visually highlight the text, which utilizes the structure of Jungian archetypes and examples from throughout world mythology to explore aspects of the feminine, and relate them back to passages and stages in life. While I did feel a little gender excluded from the party at times since it is explicitly written to address women navigating the stages of a woman's life, I found a lot that was moving and meaningful to anybody leading a human life. And one can hardly begrudge making women the focus here as a counter-point to a few millennia of male-dominated spiritual institutions. A beautiful book, inside and out.              

At The Drive-In Volcano  (Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Tupelo Press, 2007, 85 pp.)
As I said, I'm always reading at least one volume of poetry. Sometimes I have a pipeline built up, but in this case, I was without follow-up when my previous volume wound down. Browsing at a bookstore, I was drawn to this volume by the candy heart on the cover and the poetry of the poet's name. It also had a plug on the back by Naomi Shihab Nye, who I've become a fan of lately. I was not misled- the 57 poems in this volume beguile with their mix of travelogue, journey through a personal past and present, and unashamed mixture of pop culture and more mythic sources into the trip. Aimee Nezhukumatathil has pulled off a mixture that I myself often aim for in my poetry. Which is not just inspiring, but also moving, and really darn pretty to read. 

And there we are! It seems unlikely to me that I'm going to hit 52 books, with only two months to go. But hey, I'm not giving up, and you always get further with an ambitious aim than with no aim at all...

      

Ten Years Gone By...

I just has a birthday this past Friday, which always gets me in a "looking back" kind of mood. Since I was born in 1970, this particular birthday also has me hoping that I'm about to discover the secret to:

That's not what I'm here to discuss today, though. But I have, in fact, been thinking a lot about life. Being on the leeward side of 40 has made me wonder about the twists and turns my life has taken, what might have been, what might now be too late, etc. I don't necessarily recommend this crazy-making line of thought, but it does lend itself to looking for the narrative.

And as it happens, one of the biggest turning points in my life recently had its own birthday, and has everything to do with narrative. In April 2002, the uranium pile of my first marriage had finally hit critical after a two and a half-year meltdown. This was a crisis I bore no small measure of responsibility for, and I was already going through a process of wrenching change and self-examination in trying to address the issues that had brought it on. Between that and the general void the collapse of a twelve-year relationship leaves in its wake, I was struggling to rediscover who I was and what I wanted from life.

One of the things I had put on the shelf about ten years before that was a lifelong interest in writing. Even as a kid, I had written short stories and movie scripts. I started keeping a journal and writing poetry in my teens, and kept it up all through my early 20s. Then, as I was gearing up for graduate school and working life after that, I stopped. I can't even tell you why, exactly, but it went away, and was replaced by more "grown up" concerns. Not at all coincidentally, I think, addiction and darkness started ramping up at the same time.

Back to post-separation: alone, shaky, and rebuilding, in the summer of 2002 I decided to take an "Intro to Fiction"  course led by Junse Kim at the Bay Area's excellent Writing Salon. I'd already started keeping a journal again in the last year of the marriage and the workshop further re-awakened literary stirrings. By late August I had realized, "You know what? I think I'm supposed to be a writer!" I began work on a novel.

So here we are, ten years later. I'm still writing! It doesn't pay the bills, but it remains the core of how I think of myself: I'm a writer. Sometimes, though, I wonder if I have "enough" to show for it. The part of me that does this because it is my truest and deepest calling in the world gets mixed up with the part of me that wants it to have some kind of concrete outcome in terms of recognition and success. Well, for both those parts, I'd like to bear witness to what I have produced so far:

• First (and perhaps foremost?) I ended up doing 7 drafts of that novel that I began in 2002, Out in the Neon Night, before finishing it in 2006. I ended up sending out queries for it to 27 agents in 2007, 3 of whom requested a look. While none ended up coming through, I do from time to time consider doing another round of queries, or even e-publishing and promoting it myself. In the mean time, you can read a sample chapter.     

• My essays "Kissing Girls in the Dark" and "Watch the Skies!" appeared in the 2005 and 2006 issues of the late, great compendium of true tales of the unseemly Morbid Curiosity. I will always be grateful to Morbid's editor (and darkly wonderful writer) Loren Rhoads for publishing me for the first time.

• My confession of my mid-30s discovery of a love for heavy metal, "I Sold My Soul to Rock and Roll" appeared in the 11th issue of the sadly departed "Magazine For People Who Think Too Much" Kitchen Sink in 2005.

• While I was engaged in endless rewrites of Neon Night in 2005-2006, I started a much more lighthearted "new novel" to have something fun to work on in the midst of revisionitis. It eventually petered out at 20 chapters, and I set it aside in favor of other things. But I've been feeling some enthusiasm for resurrecting it recently... 

• I wrote several articles on arty (and boozy) aspects of San Francisco life for Metrowize.com in 2007. 

• In 2008 and 2009 I wrote for the online version of LEGENDmag. My first piece there was about not loving Radiohead, and one of my most popular was "Hipsters Are Everywhere, But Nobody Is a Hipster".       

• The Rumpus.net was briefly graced by my presence in early 2009 as well.

• SoMa Literary Review published my poems "untitled" and "Twelve Steps to the New Israel of the Beats" in 2009. Sadly, their online back-archive is currently in search of a host, but I can send you copies if you want to read them!   

• My ponderously titled but oh-so-interesting prose poem Post-separation alone at night listening to Patti Smith sing “Dancing Barefoot” while thinking of mistakes I made while living in Hong Kong blues was published on Lit Up Magazine's site in May 2009.  

• Slouch Magazine published a short prose piece of mine, "relapse in 26 lines" in August 2009. 

• Two science-themed poems of mine, "Changing Viewpoints" and "A Truth Beyond All Truths" made it into the Fall 2009 issue of Umbrella Journal.

• My prose poem "Young Karl Marx" was featured on Opium Magazine's website in late 2009. 

• In 2010, my essay "Bachelors of Armageddon" appear in When I Was There, an anthology of tales of student life at UC Berkeley.

• From 2007-2011 I finally pursued a lifelong interest in film-making as a member of the Bay Area independent film co-op Scary Cow. During a four year-period I worked on 13 short films in a variety of capacities, including 6 that I wrote or co-wrote. You can get more of a description, and links to several of the films I helped write, produce or direct, here.    

• Even my bad adolescent poetry has had its day in the sun, being read on stage as part of the Mortified reading series in San Francisco and Boston multiple times from 2006 through 2012. 

• My Short Story "Ave Maria" was published in 2012 in the anthology Warpaint, available from Amazon on Kindle, and in several other electronic and print formats from the publisher, Zenfri. Meanwhile I have three more short stories making the rounds of submissions. They vacillate between despair at ever seeing the light of day and feeling terribly encouraged by Ave Maria's success.   

• Earlier this year I completed the first draft of my first full-length screenplay. I'll be revising and finishing it over the next year, and then confronting the intriguing sell/make decision... 

• I also just finished revising a collection of 40 poems (written between 2000 and 2010) which I am now starting to submit to publishers and prizes. 

So there you have it. Looking back, it doesn't seem like such a bad output for my first ten years (re)devoted to being a writer. That belief wavers a little whenever I hear about a 20something author's big debut. Then I remember that Raymond Chandler didn't publish his first story until he was 45, or his first novel until he was past 50. And the truth is, should success come sooner, later, in a form I can barely recognize, or even never, it doesn't really matter. I have to keep doing this. I'm a writer!

  

    

Book Reviews: Batman: Dark Victory, The Spiral Dance, Why Things Burn

My Goodreads profile is telling me that I'm at 14 on my self-challenge to read 52 books this year. It seems to think this puts me 5 books behind so far. The math is hard to argue with, but I still feel pretty good about my progress! Within the past week or so, I finished three books, which I am looking forward to reviewing for y'all. Y'all? Yes, I am a California native currently living in New England. But half the family is from Arkansas, so I feel justified in engaging in the occasional southernism. Now, back to books...

Batman: Dark Victory  (Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale, DC Comics, 2001, 388 pp.)
I'd been looking forward to this volume ever since finishing the last Batman collection I read by these two guys, The Long Halloween. That tale had been set in the early period of Batman's career, as many of my favorites are, and depicted the origin of Two Face. It was dark, and excellent, and, also worth mentioning, one of the major inspirations for the storyline of the last Batman film. This one promised to tackle an equally interesting story, even tougher to do well, the origin of Robin. So how did it do? Very well! I won't get in to spoilers here, but I can say that the Robin storyline is in a way a subplot to the main action, the search for a serial killer who's targeting Gotham's police. But that storyline provides us with a development of Batman's character and mission that makes it utterly sensible how Robin comes to be a part of it. It's so well done that I can even almost buy in to the red, yellow and green costume. About my only quibble is the way Tim Sale draws the Joker, giving him an inhumanly long face, and teeth that defy all laws of anatomy. I know it was a bad spill he took into that vat of chemicals, but this is just a little too much, especially for a volume that otherwise is firmly grounded in a grim realism.    

The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess  (Starhawk, HarperOne, 1999 20th Anniversary Edition, 310 pp.)
Over the last few years, I've become very interested in Goddess-centered religion. I found that, for me, thinking of (and talking to) Her as a "She" helped me develop a connection I never quite had with "Him". This is, of course, because of particular features of my history and makeup, and I don't claim it as any kind of universal truth. Nevertheless, it did get me interested in other people looking at the feminine side of the divine, and this book kept coming up in the course of my investigations. One of the most meaningful spiritual experiences I've had in the last few years was at one of the seasonal rituals hosted by Reclaiming, the group founded by Starhawk, the author of this book. Despite that, I approached reading it with some trepidation. I associate the Neopagan movement in the Bay Area with more than a little flakiness and knee-jerk radical politics. Reading it, though, totally turned my perception around. Especially in this 20th Anniversary edition, where Starhawk has an opportunity to go back and provide additional commentary on each chapter from the 10th and 20th anniversaries, what really impressed me was seeing Neopaganism as a living, evolving spiritual system. The point is not how "factual" the picture of the history of Goddess religion is, or what the sources and authenticity of various rituals are. What I found most impressively in these pages was a low-dogma "try it and see" approach to a spiritual way of being that strives to be open for people of all genders and sexualities and reconnect us to nature and each other. There was lot here that resonated with me, and that will illuminate my thinking as I further pursue my spiritual exploration...            
  
Why Things Burn  (Daphne Gottlieb, Soft Skull Press, 2001, 125 pp.)
I started reading this collection of poems a few years back, but never got around to finishing it. I guess it just wasn't the time, but I'm glad I returned. These poems are excellent, searing, and grounded in the inner realities of the heart and the outer realities of urban life, which tends to be some of my favorite poetic (and generally literary) territory. Daphne Gottlieb comes out of the performance poetry scene, but seems to have utterly escaped the often-encountered problem of performance poems not translating well on the page. Much of her poetry is political and feminist as well, but she rarely sacrifices the poetics to the politics. Which, let me tell you, is not an easy trick to pull off. I was especially delighted by how she plays with form- deliberately mutating the shape and breaks of lines, and hybridizing her poems with other texts (such as news stories, or commercial materials). Again not an easy thing to pull off without falling into gimmickry, but in her deft hands it opens up meanings and connections in a startling way. It's inspired me to once again try some more experimental writing in my own poetry, and that, I hear, is the sincerest form of flattery.    

Book Review: Born In The Year Of The Butterfly Knife, Codependent No More, Julius Caesar

I've finished three books within the past week, which puts me at 10/52 of my self-challenge on Goodreads to read 52 books this year. That's one a week, I hear! Their pace-counter informs me that I'm one book behind, but I feel pretty encouraged myself! And now, on to reviews...

Born In The Year Of The Butterfly Knife  (Derrick Brown, Write Bloody Publishing, 2004, 203 pp.)
A few years ago, I saw "The Drums Inside Your Chest" a concert film of performances by independent poets. I was initially drawn to the film (besides the inherent attraction of poetry to me) because it was produced by and featured Amber Tamblyn. She talks to God, after all. But the poet in the film I ended up being most impressed by was Derrick Brown, and I went out afterwards to find this volume collecting his poems from 1993-2004. While I'm a fan of Slam poetry and performance poetry in general, I've found before that many poets who are compelling on stage don't read nearly as well in print. Brown, though, has such a visceral quality in his words, and such sharp images, that he escapes this trap. Check out his poem "Kick in the Chest" some time, for example. It pretty much says everything about what I think writing should do. If you like things that burn with truth and are unafraid to look ugly in the process, Brown's poetry might be for you.    

Codependent No More (Melody Beattie, Harper/Hazelden, 1987, 229 pp.)
Speaking of things that burn with truth and are unafraid of illuminating ugliness in the process... I've known of this book, the foundational work on recovery from codependence, for some time, but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. In the meantime, I absorbed a lot of the concepts in it from wise friends in the halls of recovery, and from Beattie's daily meditation reader The Language of Letting Go. If I hadn't, I think this book would have landed like a thunderclap. As it was, even as familiar with the ideas in it as I was, it was quite discomfiting at times. In the best sort of way. Highly recommended for anyone who has suffered from codependence in any of its varieties, and still needs to learn that fundamental truth that taking care of ourselves is not only okay, it's necessary.         

Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare, 1599)
I'm probably not going to deliver anything here that's been substantially missed by others in the last 400 years or so. I will talk a little bit about why I wanted to read it. After going through a classics kick last year that included reading the the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and Paradise Lost, as well as re-reading (well, 50%, anyway) the Bible, I developed a taste for epic works of mythical power. Pound for pound, you pretty much don't get more of that anywhere in English literature than you do with Shakespeare. I left a very happy reader, not least of all because the pages spoke so much more to me now than they did during my previous reading. Apparently, my world has grown since the 8th Grade!

Book Review: The Field Guide to Bigfoot and The Romminghouse Madrigals

Goals, I hear, help give life direction and purpose. And while I have to tone down my own relentless goal-orientation at times to rediscover the joy of just being, I do find goal-setting to be a useful tool.

One goal that I've taken up for this year is a self-challenge to read 52 books. I'm being fairly liberal in my definition of "book", including comic trade paperbacks, for example. I'm also being fairly liberal in my definition of "read in this year", including books I began in 2011 but am finishing in 2012. All appropriate disclaimers now aside, you can track my progress on my Goodreads profile, and so far I'm doing pretty well. With these two that I've just finished, I'm at 5 out of 52! And now, for the reviews...

The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates (Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe, Anomalist Books, 2006, 205 pp.)

I've had my eye on this book for a while, but after recently visiting the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine headed by the book's author Loren Coleman, it became even more of a priority. I'm glad I got around to it, because it's loads of fun. Originally written in 1999, and with two forwards now bringing it into the 2000s, the front section, in fine field guide fashion, aggregates worldwide reports of different kinds of mystery hominids to produce profiles (with track outlines and range maps) of nine "types" of possible undiscovered primate. This actually is very useful in that it clarifies how some dissimilar sightings that are lumped together as "Bigfoot" or "the Yeti" for example, may actually result from more than one species or variant. The bulk of the book then has two page descriptions of over 50 sightings, arranged by continent, one page being a full-page line drawing, and the other describing the details of the sighting, which subtype it corresponds to, and a general setting of related sightings, legends and fossil finds that resemble the case in question. The final section goes over the science of proving or disproving unknown primates, and makes some best guesses about which might soon be discovered. While one could certainly have a quibble or two (I, for example, would have liked range maps for the individual sightings, and was also left wondering why semi-legendary material about giants and mermaids was fair game, but equally widespread fairy lore was not) the book is fun and well-done. As with most books on the unexplained, it's worth further research on what you read, as some things mentioned turn out to be less than meets the eye after further reading. The authors have generally been careful with their facts, though, and there are loads of things here that even an aficionado of cryptozoology like me had never heard of before.           

The Roominghouse Madrigals (Early Selected Poems 1946-1966) (Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press, 1988, 256 pp.)

Speaking of goals for the year, one of mine is to finish putting together a collection of what I like to think is my best poetry from 2001-2010 and finding a publisher for it. As with many different kinds of writing and editing, one of the best things to do for inspiration is to read in the same genre, and I usually have a volume of poetry that I'm currently reading. Like this one that I just finished, which I LOVED. I've long been a fan of Bukowski, who is in the happy position of being an equally good poet, novelist and essayist. Interestingly, given the picture of him as a grizzled barfly, he's like a classic 19th century man (or woman) of letters in that respect. And the fact that he focuses his powers on the gritty facts of urban life and the inner blight of wrestling with bitterness and failure makes it all the more glorious. This volume features his early poems, from before his success and wider fame of the late 60s/early 70s. Anybody who has ever spent time in the roominghouses of rough streets and/or their own soul will find things here that they recognize in their beauty, ugliness and honesty. And isn't that what poetry, at it's best, can do for us?    

Forty Poems in 40 days-sputtered out at 35.

Well, it was a noble experiement. And if moving and the busiest work week I've had in like, ever at this job, and an out of town trip all conspired to zap me short of the finish line, I still learned something. Namely that, despite what I have long believed, one does not have to passively wait for the Muse to arrive to do poetry. It can be practiced on demand. Maybe not always prettily, but it is possible. Good news for stuck poets everywhere who want the kick-start! Below are entries 21-35. You can find 1-10 and 11-20 in previous entries.

************************************************

Two shakes of a lamb’s tail
Urban Dictionary:
Where did the phrase come from?
Answer Girl:
No one seems to know.
Her dark matter:
One who has seen, sees readily.
The Maven’s Word of the Day:
Visualize those little tails
constantly thrashing
back and forth.


Book of Love
Who, they ask
(understand, despite
my coming disparagement
of it,
that it remains
a damn fine question)
who,
who wrote the book of love.
Who wrote it?
We ought to ask:
Has anybody ever read
the motherfucker?
The world has
by and large
seems to have
left it on the shelf.
But you and I,
You and I…


Meeting Abbey’s Mom
Curtain pulled to one side
staring out morning window
with the cat.
Hand on doorknob
deep breath before opening
warm flannel
deep bosom hug.
Amused smile
sideways glances
holding her hand.
Hearing of
embarrassing childhood
stories
now warming
to possibilities.


Do it now!
Turn down the dog
Switch off the cat
Floss your pants
Fluff the driveway
Put on your groceries
Unzip the TV
Slip on your car
Make the garden
Water your bed
Fold the eggs
Whatever word is given
Act don’t think
Do it now


Concrete Poem
one square
gray
with hints
of silver and white
smooth plane
marred by chunks
scratches
and lumps of age
spotted with pads
of squashed black
sticky gum
white splatter
left by
passing bird
and green-yellow scrub
growing at the margins


Ergonome’s 12 Golden Rules for safe keyboard use #11 & 12 work well for life in general too
When you travel
from Home,
don’t resist
natural movement
When you’re not traveling,
Rest at Home


Church Street Café
Back when it was Muddy Waters
this place
used to be
a train-wreck,
each pitted, scarred table
a coach carrying
a choir of whores
who gargled
waterfalls of scorn,
their filth lodged
in every crevice
of the cracked,
blackened brick wall.
When it was renamed
a gong must have struck
in some eternal realm
sparking a baptism,
the whole place born again
as a respectable haunt
of laptop computers
and advertising execs
talking independent film.


Morning commute, 28 Fort Mason
Bank of dirty brown-gray cloud behind
Stonestown pull of the magnet from the
journal clasp on the pen ivy-choked parking
lot fence work crew shoveling piles of tar
into hole in the road hedges look like an
80s rapper’s haircut San Francisco Masonic
Center glares through lack of windows
Taraval Vietnamese place orange green
red splash of color on the corner Sunset
lettered avenues a sea of pastel houses
squat peach Jiffy Lube guards Noriega’s
slope down to the sea growing crowd of
elderly Chinese at the front of the bus
broken by lone Russian newspaper reader
“wet paint” sign by the barrel-chested
green trash can on Judah chipped paint on
a forlorn tan house between Iriving and
Lincoln thick green trees on either side of
the fast route through the park clear smell
of eucalyptus through the window blue-suited
crews watering & pruning he rose garden at
Fulton the girl on at Balboa long straight
blonde hair mass exodus at Geary as always
California connection to Chinatown finishes
off the stragglers white arrows point toward
narrow lanes green walls climb the side
toward the tunnel flickering halogen light in
concrete tube on the other side tall trees in
the Presidio like matchsticks white clock and
red lights on the toll booth steel gray bay and
red thrust of bridge up into foggy
disappearance ivy ripples in the wind at the
turnaround Coast Guard ship clipping white
trail through the Bay Palace dome with white
city dully gleaming in background light is
transparent here at the stop.


ST:TMP
The first twenty minutes
always makes me cry
With the medal cast
on the burning sands
The Golden Gate
And the shuttle
with the admiral
circling the ship
like a lover
approaching the beloved
with hushed reverence


Changing Viewpoints
We are flat, and
it moves around us.
We are round, and
it moves around us.
We move around it,
in epicycles.
We move around it,
in ellipses.
We move around it,
in ellipses, determined by
the force of gravity.
We, and it, and millions of others
are all gathered together.
Billions of others, all gathered
together in a giant pinwheel.
Our pinwheel just one of billions.
Just one of billions
all expanding outward
from a single point.
From a single point,
that’s a quantum fluctuation.
Quantum fluctuations
are influenced by observers.
It moves around us?


This seat is mine motherfucker!
Surge of adrenaline
and leap to the feet
from the crappy side-facing seat
as the bus slams to a stop.
Launch down the aisle
icy stare-down of the old man
bounding my way,
proceed
with no regard
for little old ladies
boarding in the back.
Slide in to the last forward-facing seat
for the long ride to come,
panic finally subsiding.


(untitled)
from pointing straight up
to shriveled
can happen in six seconds flat
when she pulls a gun


Ode to Sinatra and Sean Combs in Hell
I see k.d. lang
on TV screen
singing with Tony Bennet
and I like her less.
What’s she doing
with that thug?
Then I realize I’m confusing
Tony Bennet
with Dean Martin
and I like them both again.
And really
I only feel that way
about Dean Martin
because he palled around with
Frank Sinatra.
So maybe
he’s innocent too.
Regardless,
my contempt for P. Puff-diddly Comb
and his whole genocidal crew
remains undimmed.
I guess I just don’t like gangsters.


Every day in recovery is like this
The bee on my shoulder
buzzes.
It is his nature,
he means no particular harm.
I move to swat.
It is instinct,
I contemplate it without malice.
Pausing,
I use the umbrella strap
to brush him off.
A new day has dawned.


Singing the lease
walking from room to room
checking the fixtures
your ghost was on me
like a rabid Pomeranian

40 Poems in 40 Days!

At the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February I went to a poetry workshop where two poet-professors from Davis, Brad Henderson and Andy Jones described their semi-annual ritual/challenge of doing 40 poems in 40 days. The idea is, regardless of quality of result, to write a poem a day every day for forty days as a way of kicking your poetic muse into gear. They do this a couple times a year, although typically only a handful of the resulting poems go on to be used elsewhere. They even provided a list of daily prompts to guide your efforts if you need direction.

This whole venture sounded like fun, and fit nicely with my own intention for the year to re-connect with my muse. I knew I would be busy in March and April with my film project, so I decided I’d give it a try starting in May. And here we are! Being a confessionalist in my writing, I’ve decided to share the process with you, my hapless victims. The first ten day’s worth are below, more to follow…

Warning: These are meant to be exercises, and some of the prompts that inspired them are intentionally nonsensical. Proceed at your own risk…

Hot Water
(for Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”)

Some said fire, some said ice
but Frost (great seer)
got it right on both counts:
the lineaments
of our slaughter
are even now
being traced
by the drip, drip, drip
of hot water


A Truth Beyond All Truths
(owing something to Wallace Stevens’ “Landscape with Boat”)

Anti-matter, florid, eccentric

Meets its opposite and wipes out all things
Leaving behind the scintillating blue array
Of particle trails
Rushing out from a point that is no point
Primeval blank vacuum field

In the Night before all nights
Something erupted there,
Or nothing,
Whichever, kept expanding
Into all the things that now are

The truth, even now,
Is that these things are still the nothing
They once were,
Even we are that nothing
Which is to say something

We, all, the empty space
From which pours infinite creation


untitled
I would lie there
twelve years old
on the sand
between the dusty spread legs
of two oak covered hills
yearning for something
that stirred
like the slit-eyed leopard sharks
in the crusted salt
brackish tang
and sinuous twist
of the slough before me


Rocking Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu
All 200 patients
of the Denton Regional Medical Center
in Denton, Texas
have custom headphones
built into their beds
that play every Aerosmith song
ever recorded
on demand

Since most of the patients are older
classics are popular
In Cardiology, Radiation Oncology and
Geriatric Neurology
it’s strictly
“Sweet Emotion”, “Dream On”
and “Mama Kin”

Even down in Progressive Care
and the Adolescent Unit
they still have the good sense
to pick it up with the Run-DMC remix
of “Walk This Way”
and cut it off circa 1994
with “Cryin’”

Only in the Psych Ward
in the basement
does anybody have the
bad taste, or derangement
to listen to
“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”


Nightmare of myself given childhood encouragement and high school confidence
He feels nothing but satisfaction,
a kind of ownership,
as he slaps the behind
of the lithe young blonde
lounging in satin
on his way to the shower.
More of the same
in the streamlined gleam
of his sports utility vehicle
gliding down LA freeways.
The feeling reaches a peak
in the glass-walled office
where all eyes at the trading desk
behold him with nervous regard
while his view
sweeps the city
that the electronic millions
he commands
courses through
as he confidently ignores
their expected reverence.


ellipsis
Of all the…
I have ever…
the one
that endures is…
Even now… rises
at the memory of… …
lying… on the…
as we… the width
and breadth
of…
until…
ran its course
and…
took its weary toll


It’s Surprising to Me Too
Legions of menstruating grandmothers for Obama
Will have their final battle
With the spider monkeys of doom
On the caldera of an Icelandic volcano
On July 4, 1876
For reasons that are yet obscure
But will one day be the subject
Of Applied Chronametrics term papers
Flashed through cerebral upload academies
By eight year olds


600 Montgomery
It squats at the bottom
like a giant marble bullfrog
The functionless top scratches heaven
with its ornamental cement pylons
In-between
stack upon stack
of white stone, black window
options narrow


Question to the Taiwanese birders I met at the Explorer’s Inn, Tambomachay, Peru
Do grebes float
In the Rio Tambobo?
Venturers
through a fluidic space
whose muddy bottom
is as bone-littered
as the Chauchilla Cemetery,
do they brave caiman,
giant river otters
and threats whose taxonomy
I can’t even name
and then emerge
to build nests
in green jungles
abutting sandy riverbanks?


I began to seek the way out long before
We lived in Salinas, I was only six or seven. I was not allowed to go to the 7-11 by myself. I snuck there anyway with my next-door neighbor. On the way back we cut through an abandoned lot. We got away with it! Home, no evidence, parents never even knew—“What happened to your foot?” I looked down to find my right foot covered in blood. I must have cut it on broken glass in the lot. I didn’t feel it before, but as soon as I saw it, I screamed and cried. Pain? Yes. But almost as bad— Caught! Lying, guilt, doing what I wasn’t supposed to. My foot throbbed and pumped out crimson. The blood shooting up the dropper’s neck, in my system even then. It left behind a triangular scar that remains to this day.

Three new(ish) poems

Here are three poems that came out of a writing retreat I went on in September. So far the only poems I've done this year, which is a lot less than last year, but I guess the Muse has had other plans for me this year. Far be it from me to argue with Her, you never win that one.

All three emerged from writing exercises that use words and phrases to jumpstart your creativity. The first two are pretty much flights of fancy that I've left as they originally came out. The third had something more that it wanted to say, so I kept working with it and revised it a few times.

(untitled)

Ted from the Bureau of Assholes

knows nothing

about the geology of the wolf.

Thus nobody can absolve

that nappy-headed bastard cuttlefish

who masturbates to thoughts of Buchenwald

as if his acid copper parody

of an unblinking vigil of

chameleon maiden trollops

could unlock

the pristine entrails

of stellar divinities.

Better he had met

the hogweed accordion of the abortionist

or his mother had used a diaphragm

of marigolds and tapers

to arbitrate the okra omen

of his father's

sparrow song seed husks.

That was when I knew I had to write this

If you wander far enough

you will come to it:

Celestia

the great city

at the edge of forever.

(Standing up to get a hot dog

someone spills mustard all over me.

Dammit!

I was just on the edge,

the way it always happens.

Now my hand hurts

and the opportunity is fled.)

Gone into the land beyond sleep

the land in which the only light

comes from Celestia.

The Great,

city on the edge of forever,

her ruins marked only by

a wild exultation

brought down into stony fragments

of dream and myth.

(It must be very hard to understand.

Don't worry.

Just start with the telephone

and a meal in silence.

You will know that when love calls

you do, in fact, have to go.)

That was when I knew

I had to write this last will and testament

to you.

I Think It Came In Through the Window

The egress through which I let it in

Seemed small,

Too small

To do any real harm:

Just a scotch on the windowsill

Gleaming gold in ice-cube plastic glass,

Volumes of poetry scattered on the comforter,

Their words a swarm of mosquitoes

That congealed

Into a nodding acquaintance

With darkness.

In the darkness I ordered another.

And another.

And another.

Until,

One shaky morning,

I found I had ordered

A box of maladies

That daily unpacked thirsty demands,

Slaughtered the mosquitoes,

And left the comforter

Littered

With dead words

And soaked

In stale sweat.