Interrupted Discourse Between a Father & Son
----------------------------------------------------
to be continued
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Charles Simic
My Turn to Confess
A dog trying to write a poem on why he barks,
That's me, dear reader!
They were about to kick me out of the library
But I warned them,
My master is invisible and all-powerful.
Still, they kept dragging me out by the tail.
In the park the birds spoke freely of their own vexations.
On a bench, I saw an old woman
Cutting her white curly hair with imaginary scissors
While staring into a small pocket mirror.
A dog trying to write a poem on why he barks,
That's me, dear reader!
They were about to kick me out of the library
But I warned them,
My master is invisible and all-powerful.
Still, they kept dragging me out by the tail.
In the park the birds spoke freely of their own vexations.
On a bench, I saw an old woman
Cutting her white curly hair with imaginary scissors
While staring into a small pocket mirror.
I didn’t say anything then,
But that night I lay slumped on the floor
Chewing on a pencil
Sighing from time to time
‘Growling, too, at something out there
I could not bring myself to name.
--------------------------------------Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
This is What it's all About...Isn't it?
This is a reader's reaction on her blog to a poem: "A PILGRIMAGE TO L'ORIGNAL" (below) that was originally published in - July 2003 - in Thunder Sandwich # 21.
"This poem describes exactly my feelings on returning home from Japan to see my grandmother, who was so alive and vital when I left, lying in bed at 99, shrunken to a "changeling" who I could hardly recognize. When she was gone, I tried to spackle the space with my memories, but realized there were not enough to fill the large hole."
In response to your question - Have I written any other poems about my mother's failing health? Yes:
OSTEO - PARADIGM
In a world of perfect bones,
there is no room for hairline fractures,
hip replacements or herniated disks.
Prostheses are non-existent; bones
do not snap like bread sticks
or wear down like soapstone.
My mother can still squeeze my hand
till my knuckles run white and our thumbs
become one. She does not fixate on yellow
biohazards or aluminum walkers. She studies
how long the water will take
to course through irrigation ditches.
In a world of perfect bones,
long after cicadas turn silent
and the calabrian heat subsides,
my mother walks about
on that five foot high retaining wall
that separates her from her garden.
----------------------------------------
Published in: August 2004 - Stirring
"This poem describes exactly my feelings on returning home from Japan to see my grandmother, who was so alive and vital when I left, lying in bed at 99, shrunken to a "changeling" who I could hardly recognize. When she was gone, I tried to spackle the space with my memories, but realized there were not enough to fill the large hole."
In response to your question - Have I written any other poems about my mother's failing health? Yes:
OSTEO - PARADIGM
In a world of perfect bones,
there is no room for hairline fractures,
hip replacements or herniated disks.
Prostheses are non-existent; bones
do not snap like bread sticks
or wear down like soapstone.
My mother can still squeeze my hand
till my knuckles run white and our thumbs
become one. She does not fixate on yellow
biohazards or aluminum walkers. She studies
how long the water will take
to course through irrigation ditches.
In a world of perfect bones,
long after cicadas turn silent
and the calabrian heat subsides,
my mother walks about
on that five foot high retaining wall
that separates her from her garden.
----------------------------------------
Published in: August 2004 - Stirring
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Response to a Reader
In January 2003, my mother had a massive brain stroke. She was in Italy at the time, living at our villa in Calabria. In the spring of 2003, she returned to Canada and spent some time convalescing in a town in rural Ontario called Orignal. This poem relates the events of the first time that I visited her in Ontario and was witness to the ravages wrought by the stroke.
A PILGRIMAGE TO L'ORIGNAL
That he that is not busy being born
is busy dying.
------------------------------Bob Dylan
The last station to cross is the dirt road
that hits harder when the long drive
comes to a halt. You hate yourself
for begrudging her even this inconvenience.
The ranch house looks lost on the five-acres
of lawn that disappears into the undergrowth
and the bifocal eyes between the slats
of a shuttered window. "So you've come,"
a voice squeaks through the screen door
which reveals curator and medicus. She leads
you to a room with closed blinds; leaves
you with the changeling on the bed. You
could never have prepared for this.
The light tumbles into the room as you pull
up the blinds; turn to examine the face
of a homeless mind - translucent
and flaccid, blackened by pain.
She opens one good eye - greyer
than the clouds that spilt forgiveness
on you - and you are lost.
-------------------------------------------
A PILGRIMAGE TO L'ORIGNAL
That he that is not busy being born
is busy dying.
------------------------------Bob Dylan
The last station to cross is the dirt road
that hits harder when the long drive
comes to a halt. You hate yourself
for begrudging her even this inconvenience.
The ranch house looks lost on the five-acres
of lawn that disappears into the undergrowth
and the bifocal eyes between the slats
of a shuttered window. "So you've come,"
a voice squeaks through the screen door
which reveals curator and medicus. She leads
you to a room with closed blinds; leaves
you with the changeling on the bed. You
could never have prepared for this.
The light tumbles into the room as you pull
up the blinds; turn to examine the face
of a homeless mind - translucent
and flaccid, blackened by pain.
She opens one good eye - greyer
than the clouds that spilt forgiveness
on you - and you are lost.
-------------------------------------------
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Wanna Come up and see Some of my Sketches?
Coiffeuse (1982)
Self-Portrait (1991)
Soak up the Sun (1999)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Some Well-Placed Words
Posted - Monday, September 03, 2007
Why Reginald Shepherd's Post Made Me Laugh & Cry at the Same Time
While reading Reginald Shepherd's post entitled: " Working Class Hero" I came across this passage.
"...as intellectuals and artists from poor backgrounds, people who as kids knew lots of words we couldn’t pronounce correctly, because we’d only read them in books."
It describes a socialization process that (although different) closely mirrors my own. The love affair that I had (and still have) with the English language drew me to the etiology of words and ultimately to the doorstep of poetics. Words became my sole weapon against an Italian culture that I tried so compulsively to distance myself from. There have been numerous sociological studies relating to the second generation immigrant, the denial of their mother culture & the process of assimilation within the host culture. Acquisition of language is perhaps one of the first, if not most important step in the process of acculturation. After all language & culture are so closely linked - that the mastery of a language along with the all important knowledge of its semantics & idiomatic expressions often renders an immigrant - homogeneous and in essence almost indiscernible from the host culture. This is the worst case scenario for a 2nd generation immigrant. The third generation: once it has received a modicum of social acceptability, often seeks out the original culture's nurturing teat.
As a second generation immigrant I self-consciously tried to gain the approval & approbation of this host culture. I saw my neighborhood friends & acquaintances (who I perceived had a flawed knowledge of the host language) as the enemies. Their stilted efforts at mimicking this language grated on my perception of what constituted an acceptable auditory pattern of this purloined language - that was English. I spent many hours listening to recordings of my voice trying to rectify stilted language. In my blind efforts & haste to be accepted I thought that I had received the ultimate compliment when during my undergraduate years at McGill University in Montreal - I was asked to play Macbeth in a staging of the play by a Shakespearean class (I had taken as an elective) and was told that I sounded like a young Ronald Colman (Prisoner of Zenda). Little did I know!
Despite my love & devotion to its nuances and the grammar of its expression - my love of poetics has gone by and large unrequited. It has not welcomed me open-armed within the ranks of its favored proponents. I still await the caress of an accepted manuscript - for example. I have not as yet been granted audience to read the borrowed words which best imitate my thought processes via poetic rhetoric. Despite my bending to a purloined culture I have nothing tangible to show for it. I still maintain a silent vigil.
Posted by Nick at 7:52 AM
3 comments:
Sheryl said...
Hang in there. Mine didn't get published until I had all but given up hope. Someone had to prod me to send it out that last time! I too can relate to this post as well as the other one.
1:18 PM, September 03, 2007
Nick said...
Thanks, Sheryl, for commiserating.
3:16 PM, September 03, 2007
Reginald Shepherd said...
Dear Nick,
Thanks for linking to my post. I completely understand and identify with what you write in your piece. Literature, literacy at all, was my shield against my surroundings in the Bronx ghetto, the black and Puerto Rican kids who threw rocks at me and stole my lunch money and just generally smacked me around because I didn't talk and walk like them, because I (supposedly) thought I was white; the Italian kids who threw vegetable crates on my head while calling out "Chocolate milk, chocolate milk"; even the snotty kids at the private schools I went to on scholarship. It was like learning a second language that no one else spoke, and that contained the secret words that would enable me to escape one day. Meanwhile, no one understand me but my mother (now dead), and even with her, the more her ambitions for me came true, the further apart we became, since her hope for me was that I would get to a different world than the one in which she grew up and the one in which she'd ended up.
And if you need encouragement, as I might have mentioned in my post, I sent out three hundred individual submission packets of four to six poems each before I had a single poem accepted anywhere. And it took me five years of non-stop submission (and revision) before my first book was accepted. I've now published five books of poetry and a poetry anthology, and I still get rejected more than I get accepted. So hang in there. Perseverance works, even if it works too damned slowly much of the time.
all best,
Reginald
5:55 PM, September 19, 2007
Why Reginald Shepherd's Post Made Me Laugh & Cry at the Same Time
While reading Reginald Shepherd's post entitled: " Working Class Hero" I came across this passage.
"...as intellectuals and artists from poor backgrounds, people who as kids knew lots of words we couldn’t pronounce correctly, because we’d only read them in books."
It describes a socialization process that (although different) closely mirrors my own. The love affair that I had (and still have) with the English language drew me to the etiology of words and ultimately to the doorstep of poetics. Words became my sole weapon against an Italian culture that I tried so compulsively to distance myself from. There have been numerous sociological studies relating to the second generation immigrant, the denial of their mother culture & the process of assimilation within the host culture. Acquisition of language is perhaps one of the first, if not most important step in the process of acculturation. After all language & culture are so closely linked - that the mastery of a language along with the all important knowledge of its semantics & idiomatic expressions often renders an immigrant - homogeneous and in essence almost indiscernible from the host culture. This is the worst case scenario for a 2nd generation immigrant. The third generation: once it has received a modicum of social acceptability, often seeks out the original culture's nurturing teat.
As a second generation immigrant I self-consciously tried to gain the approval & approbation of this host culture. I saw my neighborhood friends & acquaintances (who I perceived had a flawed knowledge of the host language) as the enemies. Their stilted efforts at mimicking this language grated on my perception of what constituted an acceptable auditory pattern of this purloined language - that was English. I spent many hours listening to recordings of my voice trying to rectify stilted language. In my blind efforts & haste to be accepted I thought that I had received the ultimate compliment when during my undergraduate years at McGill University in Montreal - I was asked to play Macbeth in a staging of the play by a Shakespearean class (I had taken as an elective) and was told that I sounded like a young Ronald Colman (Prisoner of Zenda). Little did I know!
Despite my love & devotion to its nuances and the grammar of its expression - my love of poetics has gone by and large unrequited. It has not welcomed me open-armed within the ranks of its favored proponents. I still await the caress of an accepted manuscript - for example. I have not as yet been granted audience to read the borrowed words which best imitate my thought processes via poetic rhetoric. Despite my bending to a purloined culture I have nothing tangible to show for it. I still maintain a silent vigil.
Posted by Nick at 7:52 AM
3 comments:
Sheryl said...
Hang in there. Mine didn't get published until I had all but given up hope. Someone had to prod me to send it out that last time! I too can relate to this post as well as the other one.
1:18 PM, September 03, 2007
Nick said...
Thanks, Sheryl, for commiserating.
3:16 PM, September 03, 2007
Reginald Shepherd said...
Dear Nick,
Thanks for linking to my post. I completely understand and identify with what you write in your piece. Literature, literacy at all, was my shield against my surroundings in the Bronx ghetto, the black and Puerto Rican kids who threw rocks at me and stole my lunch money and just generally smacked me around because I didn't talk and walk like them, because I (supposedly) thought I was white; the Italian kids who threw vegetable crates on my head while calling out "Chocolate milk, chocolate milk"; even the snotty kids at the private schools I went to on scholarship. It was like learning a second language that no one else spoke, and that contained the secret words that would enable me to escape one day. Meanwhile, no one understand me but my mother (now dead), and even with her, the more her ambitions for me came true, the further apart we became, since her hope for me was that I would get to a different world than the one in which she grew up and the one in which she'd ended up.
And if you need encouragement, as I might have mentioned in my post, I sent out three hundred individual submission packets of four to six poems each before I had a single poem accepted anywhere. And it took me five years of non-stop submission (and revision) before my first book was accepted. I've now published five books of poetry and a poetry anthology, and I still get rejected more than I get accepted. So hang in there. Perseverance works, even if it works too damned slowly much of the time.
all best,
Reginald
5:55 PM, September 19, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Quotes & Quotables
"Some folks lives roll easy
Some folks lives
Never roll at all
Oh, they just fall
They just fall"
------------------------------Paul Simon (from Still Crazy After all of These Years)
Some folks lives
Never roll at all
Oh, they just fall
They just fall"
------------------------------Paul Simon (from Still Crazy After all of These Years)
Monday, September 17, 2007
Margaret Atwood - Excerpt From "The Door"
STRING TAIL
I used to have helpfulness tacked onto me
like a fake string tail on a mangled dog.
Wag, wag, wag went my nerveless appendage:
If I give you something, will you like me?
Watch me make you happy!
Here's a dry stick for you!
I fetched it off the ash heap.
Here's a dead bird.
There! Aren't I good?
Here's a gnawed bone,
it's my own,
I took it out of my arm.
Here's my heart, in a little pile of vomit.
Was it my fault you were angered
by the world news? That you bad-mouthed God
and banking, and in addition the weather?
That you sulked all day and were vicious
to your mirror, and also
to the girls at checkout counters?
That you thought sex was a mess?
I did my best. Wag, wag
went my tail of string.
Have some drool and mud!
Admire my goodwill! It clings
to the soles of your boots
like soft pink melting jelly.
Here, take it with you!
Take everything, and then I'm free;
I can run away. I'm blameless.
You can have the string tail, too.
DUTIFUL
How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,
weeding the gardens of others
– the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts –
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
Somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.
But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word no,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?
--------------------------------------------------
The Door by Margaret Atwood - 2007. McClelland & Stewart.
I used to have helpfulness tacked onto me
like a fake string tail on a mangled dog.
Wag, wag, wag went my nerveless appendage:
If I give you something, will you like me?
Watch me make you happy!
Here's a dry stick for you!
I fetched it off the ash heap.
Here's a dead bird.
There! Aren't I good?
Here's a gnawed bone,
it's my own,
I took it out of my arm.
Here's my heart, in a little pile of vomit.
Was it my fault you were angered
by the world news? That you bad-mouthed God
and banking, and in addition the weather?
That you sulked all day and were vicious
to your mirror, and also
to the girls at checkout counters?
That you thought sex was a mess?
I did my best. Wag, wag
went my tail of string.
Have some drool and mud!
Admire my goodwill! It clings
to the soles of your boots
like soft pink melting jelly.
Here, take it with you!
Take everything, and then I'm free;
I can run away. I'm blameless.
You can have the string tail, too.
DUTIFUL
How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,
weeding the gardens of others
– the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts –
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
Somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.
But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word no,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?
--------------------------------------------------
The Door by Margaret Atwood - 2007. McClelland & Stewart.
Friday, September 14, 2007
This Forgotten Spot
I have no right to complain. Up until now I have had a good run with this venue. It has afforded me more than I had expected. I have made good online friends: people who I would probably befriend in real time. But I have lost the knack to have the fair reader speak their mind. And yet the followers keep following and the swallows keep swallowing.
That is to say that the readership is still there. It is just that I hear my own thoughts reverberating. This home has gotten perceptibly colder. Can someone help me find the way back? I need to want to read the words. I need to want to see them in print. I need to want them to matter. Help me find this forgotten spot where all seems in sync.
That is to say that the readership is still there. It is just that I hear my own thoughts reverberating. This home has gotten perceptibly colder. Can someone help me find the way back? I need to want to read the words. I need to want to see them in print. I need to want them to matter. Help me find this forgotten spot where all seems in sync.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
NōD is back!
NōD, the University of Calgary's undergraduate-run magazine comes back to campus this fall for its third year of publication.
A venue for emerging artists and established ones alike, NōD is a professional journal that showcases creative work of beginning writers and undergraduates alongside that of practicing artists. NōD magazine intersects creative communities in the literary and visual arts, inviting innovative creative endeavors.
NōD magazine is currently accepting submissions for our seventh issue.
Spread the word!
OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Deadline: October 31st 2007
Submission Guidelines: Prose, poetry and visual art of all sorts, we want it all.
All submissions must either be in or easily transferable to digital format.
Ideally, submissions are 4-8 pages in length (1500 word max for prose pieces)
We look forward to hearing from you!
Ian Kinney,
Editor, NōD
Address:
NōD Magazine
c/o Dep't of English, University of Calgary
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, AB
T2T 1N4
Email: nodmagazine@gmail.com
Website: www.myspace.com/nodmagazine
A venue for emerging artists and established ones alike, NōD is a professional journal that showcases creative work of beginning writers and undergraduates alongside that of practicing artists. NōD magazine intersects creative communities in the literary and visual arts, inviting innovative creative endeavors.
NōD magazine is currently accepting submissions for our seventh issue.
Spread the word!
OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Deadline: October 31st 2007
Submission Guidelines: Prose, poetry and visual art of all sorts, we want it all.
All submissions must either be in or easily transferable to digital format.
Ideally, submissions are 4-8 pages in length (1500 word max for prose pieces)
We look forward to hearing from you!
Ian Kinney,
Editor, NōD
Address:
NōD Magazine
c/o Dep't of English, University of Calgary
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, AB
T2T 1N4
Email: nodmagazine@gmail.com
Website: www.myspace.com/nodmagazine
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Quick Someone Light a Match
"... there are a lot of bad poets in thrall to Bukowski - after all, his great skill lay in making the writing of great poetry seem easy. Poets who affect his lifestyle without learning the craft of writing do so at their peril. And don't look to the man himself for clues on where the poems come from: he once said that writing a poem is ""like taking a shit, you smell it and then flush it away ... writing is all about leaving behind as much a stink as possible". "
From: Don't blame Bukowski for bad poetry - by Tony O'Neill
From: Don't blame Bukowski for bad poetry - by Tony O'Neill
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
Why Reginald Shepherd's Post Made Me Laugh & Cry at the Same Time
While reading Reginald Shepherd's post entitled: " Working Class Hero" I came across this passage.
"...as intellectuals and artists from poor backgrounds, people who as kids knew lots of words we couldn’t pronounce correctly, because we’d only read them in books."
It describes a socialization process that (although different) closely mirrors my own. The love affair that I had (and still have) with the English language drew me to the etiology of words and ultimately to the doorstep of poetics. Words became my sole weapon against an Italian culture that I tried so compulsively to distance myself from. There have been numerous sociological studies relating to the second generation immigrant, the denial of their mother culture & the process of assimilation within the host culture. Acquisition of language is perhaps one of the first, if not most important step in the process of acculturation. After all language & culture are so closely linked - that the mastery of a language along with the all important knowledge of its semantics & idiomatic expressions often renders an immigrant - homogeneous and in essence almost indiscernible from the host culture. This is the worst case scenario for a 2nd generation immigrant. The third generation: once it has received a modicum of social acceptability, often seeks out the original culture's nurturing teat.
As a second generation immigrant I self-consciously tried to gain the approval & approbation of this host culture. I saw my neighborhood friends & acquaintances (who I perceived had a flawed knowledge of the host language) as the enemies. Their stilted efforts at mimicking this language grated on my perception of what constituted an acceptable auditory pattern of this purloined language - that was English. I spent many hours listening to recordings of my voice trying to rectify stilted language. In my blind efforts & haste to be accepted I thought that I had received the ultimate compliment when during my undergraduate years at McGill University in Montreal - I was asked to play Macbeth in a staging of the play by a Shakespearean class (I had taken as an elective) and was told that I sounded like a young Ronald Colman (Prisoner of Zenda). Little did I know!
Despite my love & devotion to its nuances and the grammar of its expression - my love of poetics has gone by and large unrequited. It has not welcomed me open-armed within the ranks of its favored proponents. I still await the caress of an accepted manuscript - for example. I have not as yet been granted audience to read the borrowed words which best imitate my thought processes via poetic rhetoric. Despite my bending to a purloined culture I have nothing tangible to show for it. I still maintain a silent vigil.
"...as intellectuals and artists from poor backgrounds, people who as kids knew lots of words we couldn’t pronounce correctly, because we’d only read them in books."
It describes a socialization process that (although different) closely mirrors my own. The love affair that I had (and still have) with the English language drew me to the etiology of words and ultimately to the doorstep of poetics. Words became my sole weapon against an Italian culture that I tried so compulsively to distance myself from. There have been numerous sociological studies relating to the second generation immigrant, the denial of their mother culture & the process of assimilation within the host culture. Acquisition of language is perhaps one of the first, if not most important step in the process of acculturation. After all language & culture are so closely linked - that the mastery of a language along with the all important knowledge of its semantics & idiomatic expressions often renders an immigrant - homogeneous and in essence almost indiscernible from the host culture. This is the worst case scenario for a 2nd generation immigrant. The third generation: once it has received a modicum of social acceptability, often seeks out the original culture's nurturing teat.
As a second generation immigrant I self-consciously tried to gain the approval & approbation of this host culture. I saw my neighborhood friends & acquaintances (who I perceived had a flawed knowledge of the host language) as the enemies. Their stilted efforts at mimicking this language grated on my perception of what constituted an acceptable auditory pattern of this purloined language - that was English. I spent many hours listening to recordings of my voice trying to rectify stilted language. In my blind efforts & haste to be accepted I thought that I had received the ultimate compliment when during my undergraduate years at McGill University in Montreal - I was asked to play Macbeth in a staging of the play by a Shakespearean class (I had taken as an elective) and was told that I sounded like a young Ronald Colman (Prisoner of Zenda). Little did I know!
Despite my love & devotion to its nuances and the grammar of its expression - my love of poetics has gone by and large unrequited. It has not welcomed me open-armed within the ranks of its favored proponents. I still await the caress of an accepted manuscript - for example. I have not as yet been granted audience to read the borrowed words which best imitate my thought processes via poetic rhetoric. Despite my bending to a purloined culture I have nothing tangible to show for it. I still maintain a silent vigil.
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