Crisp, sad

with a small step out
she realised that the cold
would always be there.

There are a few things to share today.

One is this fantastic interview with Billy Collins. This interview manages to cover most of the things you would ever want to ask a former poet laureate.

It also gives us this qoute:

"The reason I said that poets don't need to develop is tied up with the idea of the persona. While I don't much like the expression "finding your voice, " my sense is that the important breakthrough moment for a poet is when he or she has developed a kind of character through which he or she can speak with ease. This character -- or persona -- resembles the poet in many ways but is clearly a refinement of the actual person. Your persona is your better. And what marks that discovery of a character is the conviction on the poet's part -- and subsequently, we would hope, on readers' parts -- that this character is different from all other poetic characters, at least in some small way."

This is, without question, why I love Craig Finn and why The Hold Steady has managed to ruin Music for me. Other genres, past works, are still open for discussion and widely appreciated and beloved. But new Rock and Roll - new gritty, bar band, booze fueled, aggression laden intelligent rock... this seems to be it. What else is there? Show it to me and I promise to believe, whole heartedly in the revolution. Until then, I worship at the altar of Craig Finn,

and I will forever

Stay Positive.

In Italy we have a saying...


It doesn't matter
how many dragons you slay,
who gets the princess?

(Directly inspired by this weeks Top Chef)
--------------------------------------


So, Michael Chrichton died. Which is really quite sad as he has added an enormous amount to our cultural landscape (Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere, ER, etc). In honor of him I've spent the last week going through some of his stuff. Re-reading Prey, watching The Great Train Robbery, I even watched an episode or two from the first season of ER.


Some responses:


ER is not, and never will be, one of my favorite shows. Congrats on getting George Clooney in the mix but your main contender, your forever peer, Law & Order is forever superior. In all of it's incarnations.


Prey is a magnificently paced book. I finished it in three sittings and kind of wanted another three sittings worth. Crichton has always been a voice of reason in the face of unchecked expansion of technology. From the very start of his career, he's been concerned with our technology interrupting the natural course of things. Basically, he didn't want us to screw it up. Admirable.


The Great Train Robbery was one of my favorite books when I was younger and is a pretty fantastic movie. Donald Sutherland and Sean Connery reveling in a caper filled film? Perfect.


So there, a fifteen second retrospective of how Mr. Crichton has wormed his way into my life, all for the better.


Enough.

Most People Are Djs

hold steady ybor city. you're 

up to your neck in sweat and 

wet confetti. if 

you want to get a little bit heady. 

it's gonna have

to get a little bit heavy. 

we're jamming jetskis into the jetty now. 

with some guy who looks like rocco sefredi. 

andi've heard he's been dead once already.

it's going down 

right now

in lowertown. 

they're skipping off the good ship u s s s 

sexuality. 

searching for the merchant with

the five minute delivery. 

they're slipping soft rock into

the setlist now. they got some new guy

that looks just like phil lynott. 

we're stumbling

but i think we're still in it. 

it's a big world girl and 

i can't understand it. we're 

tiny white specks on a bright blue planet.

i was a teenage ice machine. 

i kept it cool in coolers. i drank until i dreamed. 

when i dreamed i always dreamed about the scene. 

all these kids look like little lambs 

looking up at me.

i was a twin cities trash bin. 

i did everything they'd give me. i'd 

jam it in my system. she

had me cornered in the kitchen. i

said i'll do anything but listen 

to some weird talking chick who 

just can't understand 

that we're hot soft spots 

on a hard rock planet.

baby take off your beret. 

everyone's a critic and most people are djs.

working backwards from 

the doctor to the drugs. from 

the packie to the taxi to the cabbie 

to the club. 

a thousand kids 

will fall in love in 

all the clubs 

tonight. a thousand other kids 

will end up gushing blood 

tonight. two thousand kids 

wont get too much sleep 

tonight. two thousand kids 

they still feel pretty sweet

tonight. 

i still feel pretty sweet.

Head Down Through a Busy Playground

whatever else she 

did, what other joys she felt,

the seeing brought pain.

So, not exactly breaking news but we have a new Poet Laureate: Kay Ryan.  

Yes, KAY Ryan.  Not Jeri Ryan.  I know, I was surprised too.

Not disappointed though.  Reading through some interviews and some of her essays (and, of course, poems) she is a minimalist and a bit of a pragmatist who is often compared to both Frost and Dickinson.  She claims she is in the business of rehabilitating cliches and old themes imbuing many of her poems with that moment in which the reader recognizes the familiar presented in a  surprising way.  A nearly extreme individualist, Ryan believes that we come to know life in a negative sense, learning by consistently being wrong. 

Carrying a Ladder 

by Kay Ryan

We are always

really carrying

a ladder, but its'

invisible. We 

only know

something's 

the matter:

something precious

crashes, easy doors

prove impassable .

Or, in the body,

there's too much

swing or off-

center gravity.

And, in the mind, 

a drunken capacity 

access to out-of-range

apples.  As though

one had a way to climb

out of the damage

and apology.

Check out her collection Niagra Rivers.

Enough.

When You Can't Reach Your Zipper

My fingers will grow
More nimble with each inch that
She adds to your waist.



Well, again, things have changed. Again.

I was fortunate enough to spend a week or so on the east coast at the beginning of this month. Aside from having to cough up heartbreaking goodbyes nearlyeveryday, it was fabulous. Fantastic. Wondrous.

Every hour or so I very nearly wished that I lived there still, or again. Predictably, this came in short spurts - most often when alongside a dear, dear friend. Then I realized that I can't stand the humidity. Can't stand it. Haaaaaaate it. Hate it.

But I'm back in the northwest. Surrounded by occasional drizzle, everlasting green and of course the love of a small, fat cupcake/pug hybrid and a slightly distracted, inconquerably generous woman who is pretty much the first thirty seconds of an antacid tablet sinking into water encapsulated in human form. She also just passed her French Praxis. Yay!

Each morning finds me at the Portland Metro headquarters of Waste Management. I'm slowly accepting this. I spend nine to twelve hours a day saying things that 75% of the American public a) only say in ridiculing jest on church bus trips or b) assume can't be said in any seriousness whatsoever unless on the set of a feature film or sketch comedy show. Things like "10-4" and "Copy" and "Over." These are my days. During lunch I sneak an hour or so of culture. I'm soothed by the dulcet tones of the Writer's Almanac, intrigued by a diverting article in whichever reasonably respected magazine I have with me before I dutifully, gratefully, fall into the welcoming embrace of an established work. Currently, Passing Through by Stanley Kunitz (who I referenced in my last "update," odd) which is magnificent and deeply recommended.

My phone has been missing for 5 days now. Funny that, "missing." It describes the physical reality well enough, but is absolutely antithetical to my actual emotional response. Hmm.

Enough.

I spent the better portion of yesterday entering numbers into an outdated DOS-based database system while listening to NPR. It was depressingly similar to the day before.





Of course this was not all that I did at work today. I also spent a good portion of time drafting an imaginary letter to Niglel McGloughlin, my Poetry professor at the University of Gloucestershire, in which I not only reminded him why I was his most favorite American student ever (this is, beyond any hope of convincing, false) and should therefore write my a soaring and undeniably persuasive recommendation for Grad School. A note of warning to Pete Powers and Matt Roth (should they tumble through some Alice hole in the floor of the Blogosphere's upper levels and end up here) - you're on deck.

Because You Asked about the Line Between

I am made of blue
sky and hard rock; I will live
this way forever.

But mostly:

Beautiful.

Powell's Poetry Problems

"Okay, I guess I'll pick it up right after the breakdown..."
- "To Live and Die in LBI," Lifter Puller

Life has changed. Stanley Kunitz famously said (at the age of 4,678 years old) that he was "not done with his changes." I suppose that's some what comforting after the nearly year long [rick]rollercoaster I've recently hopped off.

I have, through little fault of my own, ended up in a magnificent apartment in the Pearl District of Portland, OR. So I've gone from 8 puppies a day, to a short period of no puppies to just one beautiful (Have you ever Seeeeeeen such a face?) little pug named Winston Churchill (and our super favorite companion, Margaret).

My job is... well, most importantly, it exists - there was a strange fascination in holding that first check with the knowledge that more would come, steady income is kick-ass - but beyond that the whole thing crashes crazily down. If there's a bright literary spot in the universe I work at the place it's farthest from - Data Entry at,

noreallynotevenlyingthisabsolutelythegoshdarnkickyouinthecrotchtruth:

Waste Management.

What's more I have definitively proven that my job DOES NOT MATTER. I have run a series quadruple-reverse-blind-placebo tests and there remains little doubt in my mind that my bosses could not prove the difference between a fastidious day and one in which I do little more than gripe about David Dye and Bob Boilen (Maaaaan I hate those guys...).

So that's exciting. It's such a nice feeling, contributing so little to society. But... they pay me, and in the mean time I'm hitting Craig's List hard in hopes that someone out there is looking to employ a none too prolific would-be poet. Speaking of which, Powell's is currently hosting a Portland Poetry contest and I am currently failing at writing such a poem - any thoughts? Or, just draft your own and send it in. I think you get somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 free books? Pretty sweet.