4/30/2007
"Tears, idle tears," the poet wrote, but they've got their work cut out for them, the way a river might imagine a canyon.
--William Matthews
Sunday: Writing Church is in Session
--William Matthews
4/29/2007
I've been worshipping in the garden church for two days. Even the muscles in my butt hurt. Eric was down at his new college, doing his first practice workshop with the Marching Illini drumline--suddenly, he has fallen into the world of superstars. So I thought, while Cinderella was down there with him, I'd make her a garden. Whew!
The neighborhood raccoon came over last night to see what I'd done. I think she liked it. Climbed the red maple (Chayo has named the tree Queen Sally--her husband is across the yard, a monster named King Ralph; King Ralph drops hundreds of winged seeds everywhere, as does Queen Sally, and the little miracles turn into a thousand baby maple trees which I hate to pull up...a San Diego boy can't imagine maple forests as weed patches...I feel like I ought to mail you seedlings so you can have your own memorial Hummingbird's Maple). The slim little 'coon sat up there and looked over the yard, and me.
Here's a welcome meditation for this bright, flowery day:
To the Reader
by Denise Levertov
As you read, a white bear leisurely
pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,
and as you read, many gods
lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,
and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its darl pages.
Saturday
The neighborhood raccoon came over last night to see what I'd done. I think she liked it. Climbed the red maple (Chayo has named the tree Queen Sally--her husband is across the yard, a monster named King Ralph; King Ralph drops hundreds of winged seeds everywhere, as does Queen Sally, and the little miracles turn into a thousand baby maple trees which I hate to pull up...a San Diego boy can't imagine maple forests as weed patches...I feel like I ought to mail you seedlings so you can have your own memorial Hummingbird's Maple). The slim little 'coon sat up there and looked over the yard, and me.
Here's a welcome meditation for this bright, flowery day:
To the Reader
by Denise Levertov
As you read, a white bear leisurely
pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,
and as you read, many gods
lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,
and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its darl pages.
4/28/2007
Dear Janna, Dear Clarke and Grace, Dear Frankie, Dear Red Charlie, Dear White Eagle, Dear Cinder, Dear Rockie Lee, Dear Susi, Dear Mel, Dear Esteban, Dear Juan Sanchez, Dear Poage, Dear Rachel, Dear Prudence (I could go on), Dear Everybody--
So, late at night, the paranoiac and dyspeptic possum cruises through. The more hilarious raccoons follow close behind. Around four-thirty, the birds start in with their happy crappy: the red finches, the goldfinches, the rarely seen but jovial blue jay, the grackles--damn their hides, the redwing blackbirds, the holy little mourning doves, the tenacious red robins, the juncos, the chickadees, the scruffy and optimistic sparrows, and very rarely, a woodpecker and the blessed hummingbirds. The married couples show up--the cardinals and the mallards. The rogue male, our freakish neighborhood turkey, wanders along. Then there's the neighborhood hawk, who delights in leaving headless vermin inside Chayo's climbing gym. There's an owl that whoo-whoots at dusk sometimes. And a coyote who leaves tracks in the snow, but nobody ever sees him.
Squirrels and chipmunks steal my bird seed. Field mice scurry away with the sunflower seeds the grackles scatter. Those doggoned gophers and voles tunnel around under my bulbs and my columbines. And rabbits! Rabbit scum! We need a rabbit border patrol to deport them so they stop eating all my flowers!
Down the block, the geese hang out at the pond, threatening everybody and crapping on the grass. Sometimes they fly right up the street like commuters, skronking. And if you listen, you can hear the bizarre fluty scrabble of voices in the sky. Cranes! Like a Japanese painting! On their melancholy aerial wanderings. Vast white wings. Cranes migrate right over our house. They fly in a swirl. They look like leaves in an eddy of wind, circling and calling, circling and calling.
It's the Wild Kingdom around here.
You know, I'm goofy. I pray for the bees. You know what's happening to the bees all over the world. No bees--no life. However, I was delighted to learn that of all the places where bees are in danger, there is one where they are doing fine--Illinois! In my goofier moments, I think it's the spirit of Tomas Urrea, Heaven's beekeeper, keeping the hives around me alive. Our medicine is powerful, we of the Hummingbird family. Bees. My yard has bees and a thousand happy millipedes. That, to me, is a perfect church service.
Hey! Do you know what David Grayson said? He said this:
"To live interestingly and deeply, and to tell oneself about it afterward, is to squeeze the last drop of nectar from the wild grapes of experience."
The day is burning away--drink up, amigos.
Yrs,L
Tornado Alley
So, late at night, the paranoiac and dyspeptic possum cruises through. The more hilarious raccoons follow close behind. Around four-thirty, the birds start in with their happy crappy: the red finches, the goldfinches, the rarely seen but jovial blue jay, the grackles--damn their hides, the redwing blackbirds, the holy little mourning doves, the tenacious red robins, the juncos, the chickadees, the scruffy and optimistic sparrows, and very rarely, a woodpecker and the blessed hummingbirds. The married couples show up--the cardinals and the mallards. The rogue male, our freakish neighborhood turkey, wanders along. Then there's the neighborhood hawk, who delights in leaving headless vermin inside Chayo's climbing gym. There's an owl that whoo-whoots at dusk sometimes. And a coyote who leaves tracks in the snow, but nobody ever sees him.
Squirrels and chipmunks steal my bird seed. Field mice scurry away with the sunflower seeds the grackles scatter. Those doggoned gophers and voles tunnel around under my bulbs and my columbines. And rabbits! Rabbit scum! We need a rabbit border patrol to deport them so they stop eating all my flowers!
Down the block, the geese hang out at the pond, threatening everybody and crapping on the grass. Sometimes they fly right up the street like commuters, skronking. And if you listen, you can hear the bizarre fluty scrabble of voices in the sky. Cranes! Like a Japanese painting! On their melancholy aerial wanderings. Vast white wings. Cranes migrate right over our house. They fly in a swirl. They look like leaves in an eddy of wind, circling and calling, circling and calling.
It's the Wild Kingdom around here.
You know, I'm goofy. I pray for the bees. You know what's happening to the bees all over the world. No bees--no life. However, I was delighted to learn that of all the places where bees are in danger, there is one where they are doing fine--Illinois! In my goofier moments, I think it's the spirit of Tomas Urrea, Heaven's beekeeper, keeping the hives around me alive. Our medicine is powerful, we of the Hummingbird family. Bees. My yard has bees and a thousand happy millipedes. That, to me, is a perfect church service.
Hey! Do you know what David Grayson said? He said this:
"To live interestingly and deeply, and to tell oneself about it afterward, is to squeeze the last drop of nectar from the wild grapes of experience."
The day is burning away--drink up, amigos.
Yrs,L
4/27/2007
This morning, it's quiet. But yesterday, we had a tornado or three march over Naperville and drop on the edge of town. The sirens went off and the kids went to the basement to hide. People saw a trampoline flying at about 200 feet on 157th St. Today, it's wet, but still. So far. The wet air carries the rusty voices of freight trains across town. To my great delight, mallard ducks have adopted my yard as some sort of tornado shelter, and they walk back and forth, complaining about the day. Our neighborhood turkey is big and suspicious, but he's figuring out if I say, "Turkey!" it means I have some tasty peanuts or sunflower seeds for him, and he'll slink over looking like an undertaker in his big black feather coat. He'll eat them right next to me, then look up at me and say, "Yeah--you fed me, but you can still drop dead, you jerk" and strut away without another glance. I have one week of classes left, then my blessed sabbatical. Nine months of nothing but work. Real work. My work.
Virginia Woolf said: "Whom do I tell when I tell a blank page?"
When I turn on this glowing window and tap on the keys, I know at least to whom I tell things--I tell you.
L
4/25
Virginia Woolf said: "Whom do I tell when I tell a blank page?"
When I turn on this glowing window and tap on the keys, I know at least to whom I tell things--I tell you.
L
4/25/2007
My dear friend S, one of America's finest novelists, is attending to his mother's funeral this week. We sent him away with the faintest of blessings, that small thing, the human breath wishing the best and whispering prayers. And, suddenly, ironically perhaps, in this same week, we are told that Cinderella's mom, my mother in law, has suffered an aortic rupture of some sort, and her heart is having trouble working anymore. You don't know, from day to day, I am telling you, you don't know. Prepare yourself for the bad news--for one day it will be about you. I do it by living here in my house with my family. The dogs and tha cat who can't contain her love and butts into my finger on the computer mouse over and over, wrecking what I'm trying to write. I do it Grayson style, Basho style, with plants and birdseed--the cardinals came today in the cold rain, and a burning sparking bright hot goldfinch, as yellow as the mad daffodils beneath the bird feeder. I do it with books and music and food (well, you know--on that perpetual diet, shaving off inches from the Gut of Doom...only about 987 pounds to go--so maybe the food part aint happenin' right now). And, I write.
But a lot of time, I'm just quiet. Quiet enough to feel the minutes stretch and start to go more slowly. Quiet enough, with Eric drumming in the basement and Megan listening to the Killers in her bedroom and Chayo rocking the Spongebob on the 1000 sq. inch satellite TV, to just be. Here. Alive. Awake. Now.
Cid Corman said:
There are things to be said. No doubt.
And in one way or another
they will be said. But to whom tell
the silences? With whom share them
now? For a moment the sky is
empty and then there was a bird.
4/24
But a lot of time, I'm just quiet. Quiet enough to feel the minutes stretch and start to go more slowly. Quiet enough, with Eric drumming in the basement and Megan listening to the Killers in her bedroom and Chayo rocking the Spongebob on the 1000 sq. inch satellite TV, to just be. Here. Alive. Awake. Now.
Cid Corman said:
There are things to be said. No doubt.
And in one way or another
they will be said. But to whom tell
the silences? With whom share them
now? For a moment the sky is
empty and then there was a bird.
4/24/2007
A sense of wonder is not only our starting point. It can also be our destination.
--Sharman Apt Russell,
Anatomy of a Rose
Writing meditations aren't really about writing. A daily meditation is like taking your daily medication. You need to read this book if you like flowers, the world, amazement, or writing. Even if you don't. It's one of those books, like my bouwee David Grayson's, that makes me gladder to be alive whenever I open it. Science is poetry.
4/19
--Sharman Apt Russell,
Anatomy of a Rose
Writing meditations aren't really about writing. A daily meditation is like taking your daily medication. You need to read this book if you like flowers, the world, amazement, or writing. Even if you don't. It's one of those books, like my bouwee David Grayson's, that makes me gladder to be alive whenever I open it. Science is poetry.
4/19/2007
There are so many reasons people give for reading. Whether it's for pleasure, or thrills, or illumination, or education. My dad liked those wicked porno paperbacks published by Beeline Books that he kept hidden under his mattress, and I'd find and read. There was a clear and direct reason for reading! But I think one of the greatest driving forces for readers is this: companionship. I don't know if you're like me, but my favorite author becomes my best friend. OK, so maybe it's an imaginary friend, like my Chayo's talking pink winged horse or the various Sally/Victoria/Golden Wing Special Angel types of invisible sprites that seemed to come out of her closet or out of the forsythia bushes in the back yard. But I have felt not only possessive of my faves, but protective of them--like the bud in the hi school lunch court you hang out with after hours. This is why I try to remain available to readers--they are always, almost always, so nice. So kind. So open.
Today's writing thought comes from a man long gone who can become your best friend. If you like Joy and clear thinking full of love and light, he's your boy. If you want to fell grateful for being alive, he's your boy. If you want books you will be happy to read, even if you're a PhD, but wish there was a great book you could give your grandma, he's also your boy.
David Grayson. Do you know him? Find him! (Stay away from Ebay, y'all--there are a couple of his ancient books for sale there, and I want them!) He was very wise and very writerly, but he was also a nature lover, a farmer, and a journalist, when he wasn't being a powerful politician. I wish he were here today. Oh, but he is--in his books. You can find 'em on amazon.
Here's Grayson:
"Sitting in My Window, Writing"
March 13. I was up at dawn this misty spring morning, and as I sat here at my window, writing, I saw in glances the slow daybreak. There was rain in the night, and all the delicate twigs of the spiraea at my window are pearled with drops of water. I can see the esatern light gleaming among them, so that they look as hard and cold-white as frost crystals. And all around me these quiet morning hours lie my books and papers: just here at my left the musty records I am working upon; my notebooks there; the half-shaped clay of my chapters lying in a semicircle at my elbow, where I can give a pat to this paragraph or strike a bit of unnecessary mud from that. And there stands my friendly familiar, with his comfortable potbelly, his bald head, and his air of worldly wisdom--My Ink Bottle; and here in the open case my everyday spectacles, ready so that if anyone comes in, I can quickly and secretly slip them on and make believe I don't need reading glasses. Near at hand is my old friend with his two-faced duplicity, my Calendar, who tells me how time flies and that if I do not hurry I shall be old before my work is done. And here are my bookcases--not an arm's length away--where I can find anything I want--almost anything!--but what I can't find is sometimes infuriating.
Is there anything in the world better than this? Here is where I live: this is my joy. I shall never have any reward better than this.
Under My Elm
#
When I open the Urrea Institute of Writing and Trust, David Grayson's books will be in every room. I recommend The Countryman's Year to you for good companionship and smart conversation about life, work, writing, and gardens. And you can give it to your mom and Uncle Pete for his 90th birthday as well as to that Edward Abbey hiking freak you know and to a haiku-lovin' writer. Keep him by your bathtub--he won't peek. Take a bubble bath with David Grayson and go write in your notebook.
More Grayson to come....
Meditation 4/18
Today's writing thought comes from a man long gone who can become your best friend. If you like Joy and clear thinking full of love and light, he's your boy. If you want to fell grateful for being alive, he's your boy. If you want books you will be happy to read, even if you're a PhD, but wish there was a great book you could give your grandma, he's also your boy.
David Grayson. Do you know him? Find him! (Stay away from Ebay, y'all--there are a couple of his ancient books for sale there, and I want them!) He was very wise and very writerly, but he was also a nature lover, a farmer, and a journalist, when he wasn't being a powerful politician. I wish he were here today. Oh, but he is--in his books. You can find 'em on amazon.
Here's Grayson:
"Sitting in My Window, Writing"
March 13. I was up at dawn this misty spring morning, and as I sat here at my window, writing, I saw in glances the slow daybreak. There was rain in the night, and all the delicate twigs of the spiraea at my window are pearled with drops of water. I can see the esatern light gleaming among them, so that they look as hard and cold-white as frost crystals. And all around me these quiet morning hours lie my books and papers: just here at my left the musty records I am working upon; my notebooks there; the half-shaped clay of my chapters lying in a semicircle at my elbow, where I can give a pat to this paragraph or strike a bit of unnecessary mud from that. And there stands my friendly familiar, with his comfortable potbelly, his bald head, and his air of worldly wisdom--My Ink Bottle; and here in the open case my everyday spectacles, ready so that if anyone comes in, I can quickly and secretly slip them on and make believe I don't need reading glasses. Near at hand is my old friend with his two-faced duplicity, my Calendar, who tells me how time flies and that if I do not hurry I shall be old before my work is done. And here are my bookcases--not an arm's length away--where I can find anything I want--almost anything!--but what I can't find is sometimes infuriating.
Is there anything in the world better than this? Here is where I live: this is my joy. I shall never have any reward better than this.
Under My Elm
#
When I open the Urrea Institute of Writing and Trust, David Grayson's books will be in every room. I recommend The Countryman's Year to you for good companionship and smart conversation about life, work, writing, and gardens. And you can give it to your mom and Uncle Pete for his 90th birthday as well as to that Edward Abbey hiking freak you know and to a haiku-lovin' writer. Keep him by your bathtub--he won't peek. Take a bubble bath with David Grayson and go write in your notebook.
More Grayson to come....
4/18/2007
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.
--Ernest Hemingway
Meditation 4/17
--Ernest Hemingway
4/17/2007
Thanks to everyone who has been sending me emails and posting on the comments page. Frankie, Janna, Grace, White Eagle, Red Charlie, Esteban, Cinder, all y'all (as we liked to say down in Louisiana). Glad you like the Kentucky entry--glad you enjoy the meditations. It seems the non-writers enjoy them more than the writers! I love it.
I'll be posting some thoughts on the strange state of my "career" on here sooner than later. And some not-quite Wastelanders, but a few Dispatches (mo' Boston--by request from Cinder, and some Lousiana Gatorland writings, too.) As long as you read 'em, I have volumes to share. All the stuff I want to put in my 257 unpublished books.
So, here's a thought:
My primary consideration is to change. I dare not use the word grow; there may or may not be growth involved...To still keep that openness, that chance taking-ness as part of the work. Not to be afraid to make a mistake, even if it's a long and costly mistake.
--James Dickey
Meditation 4/16
I'll be posting some thoughts on the strange state of my "career" on here sooner than later. And some not-quite Wastelanders, but a few Dispatches (mo' Boston--by request from Cinder, and some Lousiana Gatorland writings, too.) As long as you read 'em, I have volumes to share. All the stuff I want to put in my 257 unpublished books.
So, here's a thought:
My primary consideration is to change. I dare not use the word grow; there may or may not be growth involved...To still keep that openness, that chance taking-ness as part of the work. Not to be afraid to make a mistake, even if it's a long and costly mistake.
--James Dickey
4/16/2007
On days like today--days of massive shootings of the innocents--it feels like what we do with words doesn't matter. How can it matter? But it does matter. Words shape dreams, words define the parameters of the sad cavern in the heart of America and the world. Words might offer ways to fill that howling empty place. My friends in AA say there's a God-shaped hole in the human heart. Lots of my other friends can't abide the constant God-talk, so maybe it's Horus, or the Equinox, or particle physics, or good strong coffee, or post-modern literary critical theory that's missing. No, wait--scratch that last one. I know the big screen TVs don't fill it, and neither does sex--though I really did noble research into that just to make sure! My pug seems to have found the answer in eating fresh cat poop out of the litter box. Which, come to think of it, reminds me of post-modern literary critical theory. So, as usual, I offer a thought for the day that's more about life and your Art (which, let's face it, is your own living) than it is about writing.
Deshimaru said:
You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
Kentucky Wastelander
Deshimaru said:
You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
4/15/2007
Kentucky Wastelander's Notebook
Come, duende. Upwelling of soul, convulsive vision, gypsy haunting,
roar from the burning center of the earth. Come.
I hate the travel. Hate the airport. Hate
the traffic. Hate the Security, the jostle,
hate the haste. Hate the wait. Hate the noise of
voices, the stink. Hate the bad
and overpriced food. Hate that they take away
your toothpaste, then
once you're though the terror-ckeckpoint, they
allow you to buy a motel-sized
tube of Aquafresh for $4.99. Hate the
chemically-crisped "fresh" veggies in the
cunning cardboard serving box you get from
the hallway cooler for $8.98. Hate the swamp
of oozing sandwich with "Tuscan chicken" and
effluent
that you eat off your knee because all tables and surfaces
are taken and the grandma next to you eating her
yogurt parfait and granola and latte mochalatta
chingalatta extra grande acts like you're trying
to steal her purse as you both gaze at the
notice board at the gate to see how late
you'll be this time but both
of you have such bad eyesight you can't read it.
And when you take your jacket off
you notice your shirt smells like mildew and you didn't know it
but it's too late to do anything about it
but sit there radiating stink and the other people
around you who hate the airport as much as you do are saying,
"What's that frigging pig's big problem, man!"
This trip's for love
and poetry.
Going to kentucky to see my dear amigo,
Frank X Walker, author
of scorching real poetry, my brother! X! America's
secret
weapon!
Blurts
all along
the airport's
corridors:
"Security!? It din't
have nothin' to DO with
securtity.
They're jus' freakin'
nosy!"
"...freak. Freak show. I
had this medical emergency
in the seat right next to me. This guy.
You wouldn't believe
the freak--"
"We're gonna
CANCEL
that
RFD CONTRACT.
I don't
know
what coulda
POSSIBLY
gotten screwed up
with
THAT."
"You gon' hook me up
with at least a Diet Coke
after I stood in line for twenty minutes
waiting for you to get back here
and give me some service?"
"Don't
stick
your
fingers
so
far
down
your
throat!"
Old woman: BELCH.
Old man beside her: Cover yourself!
#
Going to Frank, doing his battle in Kentucky,
mentor and guiding light of the
Affrilachian poets ("Affrilachia" finally getting into
the big dictionaries!)--going to try to do
some healing work. I want to shout:
Healing!
Only through poetry!
Because these days
it's too obvious--
words can kill.
So I'm on my way to Affrilachia;
an old Chinese woman sits beside me murmuring
into a cell phone;
a Korean guy beside me is tapping
on his computer;
a family from India
across from me
talks to the children
with that lovely accent that sounds like they are
tasting the letter "R" and it's made
out of butterscotch.
A blind Arab man in a wheelchair,
being pushed by an African American airline rep,
his head-scarved wife walking
behind them, being watched by
a man in a turban.
America!
#
Lexington airport
10:00 pm
the five travelers out on the empty
sidewalk are ambushed by
the unbelievably loud and freakish squalls
of a giant bird. Nobody's ever
heard a bird like that. It's a demon.
That screamin' sumbitch
must be six foot tall.
My cabbie, from Zaire, cannot stop laughing.
"Is not a bird!" he cries. (Beerd.) "Is a
robot bird! Is a recording to scare
the real birds away! You thought it was a bird!
It was not, I am telling you,
a BIRD!"
We laugh for miles.
"The robot bird fool you!"
Then, in a more somber moment,
he warns me:
"The world
is come
to end."
He says:
"God not happy
with men.
God decide
what he do, and we
must wait and see."
I love the cabbie
from Zaire
and we wish each other
good fortune in the coming
apocalypse.
I walk into the hotel
oddly uplifted by our doom.
I hit my bed and sleep
like a saint.
#
Pouring rain and cold in Kentucky.
Hard freeze in Georgia and the Carolinas.
Snow in Chicago.
Spring time.
The world is come to end.
Brunch at the Gratz Park Inn
is eerie--I'm the only one in here: it's elegant,
all set with white linen and silver, as if a convention
of wraiths had a date to come across
from the underworld for a charity ball.
Swing and big band music from the 20's and 30's
plays disconsolately over invisible speakers.
This is The Shining with
fried green tomatoes.
11:40. Dawdling over coffee.
One of those stops on the Perpetual Tour
where you don't know anyone, don't know know the hotel,
the town, or the state. Don't know what the schedule is
or how to contact your hosts. The theory and practice
of trust.
My constant message from the Beyond.
Days like this have the same mornings: up in the am feeling groggy
and confused; turn on CNN to see if the worl has, in fact,
come to end yet; check the cell phone--yes, the ringer's on LOUD;
collect USA Today from under your front door; hit the head;
check the celly again in case you missed a message; take a shower with the
celly on the eldge in case anybody calls; wish you'd brought
a Stephen White mystery to read; check the room phone;
iron your shirt--sniff it to make sure it isn't mildewy too;
head down to the restaurant.
Wry, brilliant, collegiate waitresses with Boticelli hair
hip and unconvinced in Kentucky just like they are in Chi,
take your order and peek, just like Chi,
to see what you're scribbling
in your book.
Do they see what is written here
about themselves?
Long-dead flappers and dandies croon
as you study your "Southern Eggs
Benedict" (there's those freid green tomatoes)
like powdery ghosts--
When you're up to your neck in hot water,
Be like the kettle and sing!
#
I feel only slightly guilty that, once I see that the day
is going to be spent in isolation and meditation,
I enjoy it. Me and the duende wrestling in silence.
Lorca, Lorca, Lorca!
Elevated by Art!
Assaulted by Art!
Art, and the ironing board.
#
Thursday Night, aftermath.
Headline:
URREA FAILS TO TAKE KENTUCKY!
Hundreds Do Not Appear!
Frank X showed up at 3:00 w/ his boy,
my own kids' best pal, DVan. Who is now
6"2'. We sat in the lobby
and chatted with Lee, my colleague from Peoria,
for an hour or two. Piled in the car,
drove thru pretty Lexington. Even
drove thru unpretty Lexington.
To the amazingly named Transylvania U.
People in town called it Tranny U.
We walked into the theater--four writers
plus Frank. No audience.
It's a bad sign when you enter and meet
the book seller for the event exiting
with the dolly full of books and a sour
look on her face.
A classic Oh-Oh moment.
I'm not sure what the vibe was at the Mighty Tranny.
Here was the last in the Affrilachian series--a Puerto Rican poet,
and Asian American poet, an African American writer, et moi.
The Rainbow Coalition!
So, the theater manager sweetly informed Frank X that she had
given the green room to a group of students so they could use it for a
read-thru of a play. We could go to an unused room and sit. Frank said no.
After providing things like water for previous readers, she did not give us
water. Frank had to run across campus to buy it for us.
I'm not paranoid, yet: Hmmmm.
The English and Creative Writing faculties declined the invitations
to have me visit their classes. They also declined the invitation
to send their students to the reading. They also declined to attend it themselves.
So we marched out onstage and
there were 11 people in the audience.
Plus DVan, that made 12. Frank and a student
did intors for us, so that was 6 of us onstage.
It was a stand-off. However, 3 of the audience
got up and walked out as we read.
And one of the remaining public
was a reporter.
I read my Hummingbird stuff.
To dead
silence.
Though the dean did come up and shake
my hand and I was thinking: The dean! Oh no,
man! Don't offer me a job like every dean does
when I do a reading!
I am not strong enough
to do battle like the Affrilachians!
Frank said, "It's a good thing
these writers aren't paid by the number
of folks in the audience."
As we left, the smirky theater manager called to Frank,
"Hey, thanks for coming!" Tee-hee.
"Hey," Frank said, "thanks for having us!" in the same
exact false-cheery tone of voice.
Petards were flashing! Cutlasses whistling
in the air like hornets!
Oh, well, we went to supper
full of love and nobody said anything about
fucking Tranny U, and I got the best
slice of sugar free pie I ever ate.
Hugs all around and head for home.
#
Friday
Southern gothic morning, and perhaps the very
weird duende scenes I was brought here
to see.
Waiting for the cab in the lobby, wondering where it is,
checking my watch, worrying about my flight,
I hear the walkie-talkies spit and hiss and
suddenly a woman's voice:
"Tom! Tom! Come in Tom!
I have an emergency! Come right now, Tom!"
No Tom.
The woman appears
in the lobby. Her voice is hot and sharp:
"Where's Tom!"
"Dunno," the desk man says.
She hits the cell phone, fortunately for me, set on Speaker:
"Tom! Tom! I need Tom! In dry storage. Immediately!
There's an emergency!"
Tom's voice appears now, unhurried:
"Uhyeah I'mhere."
"Tom! I need you in dry storage
now! There is an emergency! Bring
a blanket!"
"YuhI'min 318. That'sa onethreeeight."
"Dry storage!
Immediately!
Emergency!
Blanket!"
"Own mah way."
She runs out of the lobby.
Three minute pause. Now I'm hoping
the cab won't show up yet.
She's back! Has a folded blanket in her arms.
Marches thru the room, calling out:
"I've got an emergency!
Reach me on my cell phone!"
Trots out the door.
Then Tom wanders out
of dry storage with a ball cap on his head
and steps out into the parking lot to watch her
speed away in her mini-van.
He comes in and joins the other workers
saying: "What was this emergency,
anyway?"
#
Cab driver pulls up.
The saddest cab driver in America.
Pale white skin, tousled hair, stubble.
"Where to?"
"Airport."
"Airport?" he replies, as if baffled by this exotic destination.
We drive off, Slowly.
He turns left.
"I don't know why I turned," he says. "I didn't want
to turn here.
Are you
in a hurry?"
Guess not.
He talks slow, in a low baritone.
We drive to a gas station.
"Mind if I stop?"
Guess not.
He pumps about five dollars' worth into the tank.
Sticks his head in the door. "You want me to get you somethin'?"
"Pardon?"
He nods toward the food mini-mart. "You want me to get you
somethin'? A soda or somethin'? It'll cost you
three dollars th the airport."
Oh! Hey! Thanks a lot,
man! But I'm fine!
"Arright then."
When he gets back in the cab, he says,
"I just paid
all in quarters.
Had a lady
pay me all in quarters
and now I took her quarters
and paid the guy all in quarters."
Huh!
I enthuse.
"You from here?"
No, just visiting.
"Where from?"
Chicago.
I was giving a talk at
good ol' Tranny.
"Hope you wasn't
talkin' about global warming."
Ha ha! I laugh. Not me!
It's snowing in Chicago!
"Snowed here.
Killed everything.
But why
were you talking? I mean,
what about?"
I'm a writer.
"Real writer?"
I hope so.
"Published?"
Oh yes.
"You rich?"
Not yet, but, you know, ha ha, doin' all right!
"I'm a writer.
Try to write.
I wanna be a novelist, write
speculative fiction and
fantasy. But I can't write novels.
Guess that'll make it hard to be a novelist,
if I can't get it done.
Write stories.
Write plays.
Had a play produced.
It was terrible.
I write songs, mostly.
Songs are dumb. Songs
are easier than stories.
I start lots of things. Oh, I can start
anything. Can't finish nothin'.
I make CDs of my songs, you know?
Mostly voice and guitar, some piano.
I can't finish stories.
Can't finish nothin'.
Not since my divorce.
I got divorced.
She left me.
I slept through it.
I woke up and
the house was empty.
She took it all.
Goin' on five years now.
We were married twenty years.
She won't talk to me now.
I made her a CD. All those songs I wrote.
She didn't answer.
She hates me.
Got kids, too.
They hate me.
They won't talk to me
either."
Suddenly, a helicopter is hovering above the cab.
We're at a red light, and the chopper comes down and batters us with its
down-draft; he cranes up and stares at it, only about fifty feet
above our roof.
"Hey," he says, "a helicopter."
We drive on,
horse farms all around us
throbbing green as emeralds melting
in the mist, white rail fences
looking like fancy art photos.
'I know why," he says.
"They hate me because I was an idiot.
That's why.
I figure once you've been married
for twenty years
there ought to be a contract
to make it permanent. A permanence clause.
I mean, twenty years,
too late for a change.
But--skirts.
Man.
I don't chase skirts.
But when skirts
come by me,
I can't stay away.
That's why, right there.
That's why.
But I'm gonna wait
till she gets Alzheimers
and then when she can't
fight it,
I'm gonna go back
and take care
of her.
Hey,
what's you name?
I want to
buy your book."
Weather delay.
The scary TSA woman
makes me throw away my $4.99 airport toothpaste.
The clouds settle upon us
like a heavy sigh.
The hills are cold today
in Kentucky.
Meditations, 4/12 and 4/13
Come, duende. Upwelling of soul, convulsive vision, gypsy haunting,
roar from the burning center of the earth. Come.
I hate the travel. Hate the airport. Hate
the traffic. Hate the Security, the jostle,
hate the haste. Hate the wait. Hate the noise of
voices, the stink. Hate the bad
and overpriced food. Hate that they take away
your toothpaste, then
once you're though the terror-ckeckpoint, they
allow you to buy a motel-sized
tube of Aquafresh for $4.99. Hate the
chemically-crisped "fresh" veggies in the
cunning cardboard serving box you get from
the hallway cooler for $8.98. Hate the swamp
of oozing sandwich with "Tuscan chicken" and
effluent
that you eat off your knee because all tables and surfaces
are taken and the grandma next to you eating her
yogurt parfait and granola and latte mochalatta
chingalatta extra grande acts like you're trying
to steal her purse as you both gaze at the
notice board at the gate to see how late
you'll be this time but both
of you have such bad eyesight you can't read it.
And when you take your jacket off
you notice your shirt smells like mildew and you didn't know it
but it's too late to do anything about it
but sit there radiating stink and the other people
around you who hate the airport as much as you do are saying,
"What's that frigging pig's big problem, man!"
This trip's for love
and poetry.
Going to kentucky to see my dear amigo,
Frank X Walker, author
of scorching real poetry, my brother! X! America's
secret
weapon!
Blurts
all along
the airport's
corridors:
"Security!? It din't
have nothin' to DO with
securtity.
They're jus' freakin'
nosy!"
"...freak. Freak show. I
had this medical emergency
in the seat right next to me. This guy.
You wouldn't believe
the freak--"
"We're gonna
CANCEL
that
RFD CONTRACT.
I don't
know
what coulda
POSSIBLY
gotten screwed up
with
THAT."
"You gon' hook me up
with at least a Diet Coke
after I stood in line for twenty minutes
waiting for you to get back here
and give me some service?"
"Don't
stick
your
fingers
so
far
down
your
throat!"
Old woman: BELCH.
Old man beside her: Cover yourself!
#
Going to Frank, doing his battle in Kentucky,
mentor and guiding light of the
Affrilachian poets ("Affrilachia" finally getting into
the big dictionaries!)--going to try to do
some healing work. I want to shout:
Healing!
Only through poetry!
Because these days
it's too obvious--
words can kill.
So I'm on my way to Affrilachia;
an old Chinese woman sits beside me murmuring
into a cell phone;
a Korean guy beside me is tapping
on his computer;
a family from India
across from me
talks to the children
with that lovely accent that sounds like they are
tasting the letter "R" and it's made
out of butterscotch.
A blind Arab man in a wheelchair,
being pushed by an African American airline rep,
his head-scarved wife walking
behind them, being watched by
a man in a turban.
America!
#
Lexington airport
10:00 pm
the five travelers out on the empty
sidewalk are ambushed by
the unbelievably loud and freakish squalls
of a giant bird. Nobody's ever
heard a bird like that. It's a demon.
That screamin' sumbitch
must be six foot tall.
My cabbie, from Zaire, cannot stop laughing.
"Is not a bird!" he cries. (Beerd.) "Is a
robot bird! Is a recording to scare
the real birds away! You thought it was a bird!
It was not, I am telling you,
a BIRD!"
We laugh for miles.
"The robot bird fool you!"
Then, in a more somber moment,
he warns me:
"The world
is come
to end."
He says:
"God not happy
with men.
God decide
what he do, and we
must wait and see."
I love the cabbie
from Zaire
and we wish each other
good fortune in the coming
apocalypse.
I walk into the hotel
oddly uplifted by our doom.
I hit my bed and sleep
like a saint.
#
Pouring rain and cold in Kentucky.
Hard freeze in Georgia and the Carolinas.
Snow in Chicago.
Spring time.
The world is come to end.
Brunch at the Gratz Park Inn
is eerie--I'm the only one in here: it's elegant,
all set with white linen and silver, as if a convention
of wraiths had a date to come across
from the underworld for a charity ball.
Swing and big band music from the 20's and 30's
plays disconsolately over invisible speakers.
This is The Shining with
fried green tomatoes.
11:40. Dawdling over coffee.
One of those stops on the Perpetual Tour
where you don't know anyone, don't know know the hotel,
the town, or the state. Don't know what the schedule is
or how to contact your hosts. The theory and practice
of trust.
My constant message from the Beyond.
Days like this have the same mornings: up in the am feeling groggy
and confused; turn on CNN to see if the worl has, in fact,
come to end yet; check the cell phone--yes, the ringer's on LOUD;
collect USA Today from under your front door; hit the head;
check the celly again in case you missed a message; take a shower with the
celly on the eldge in case anybody calls; wish you'd brought
a Stephen White mystery to read; check the room phone;
iron your shirt--sniff it to make sure it isn't mildewy too;
head down to the restaurant.
Wry, brilliant, collegiate waitresses with Boticelli hair
hip and unconvinced in Kentucky just like they are in Chi,
take your order and peek, just like Chi,
to see what you're scribbling
in your book.
Do they see what is written here
about themselves?
Long-dead flappers and dandies croon
as you study your "Southern Eggs
Benedict" (there's those freid green tomatoes)
like powdery ghosts--
When you're up to your neck in hot water,
Be like the kettle and sing!
#
I feel only slightly guilty that, once I see that the day
is going to be spent in isolation and meditation,
I enjoy it. Me and the duende wrestling in silence.
Lorca, Lorca, Lorca!
Elevated by Art!
Assaulted by Art!
Art, and the ironing board.
#
Thursday Night, aftermath.
Headline:
URREA FAILS TO TAKE KENTUCKY!
Hundreds Do Not Appear!
Frank X showed up at 3:00 w/ his boy,
my own kids' best pal, DVan. Who is now
6"2'. We sat in the lobby
and chatted with Lee, my colleague from Peoria,
for an hour or two. Piled in the car,
drove thru pretty Lexington. Even
drove thru unpretty Lexington.
To the amazingly named Transylvania U.
People in town called it Tranny U.
We walked into the theater--four writers
plus Frank. No audience.
It's a bad sign when you enter and meet
the book seller for the event exiting
with the dolly full of books and a sour
look on her face.
A classic Oh-Oh moment.
I'm not sure what the vibe was at the Mighty Tranny.
Here was the last in the Affrilachian series--a Puerto Rican poet,
and Asian American poet, an African American writer, et moi.
The Rainbow Coalition!
So, the theater manager sweetly informed Frank X that she had
given the green room to a group of students so they could use it for a
read-thru of a play. We could go to an unused room and sit. Frank said no.
After providing things like water for previous readers, she did not give us
water. Frank had to run across campus to buy it for us.
I'm not paranoid, yet: Hmmmm.
The English and Creative Writing faculties declined the invitations
to have me visit their classes. They also declined the invitation
to send their students to the reading. They also declined to attend it themselves.
So we marched out onstage and
there were 11 people in the audience.
Plus DVan, that made 12. Frank and a student
did intors for us, so that was 6 of us onstage.
It was a stand-off. However, 3 of the audience
got up and walked out as we read.
And one of the remaining public
was a reporter.
I read my Hummingbird stuff.
To dead
silence.
Though the dean did come up and shake
my hand and I was thinking: The dean! Oh no,
man! Don't offer me a job like every dean does
when I do a reading!
I am not strong enough
to do battle like the Affrilachians!
Frank said, "It's a good thing
these writers aren't paid by the number
of folks in the audience."
As we left, the smirky theater manager called to Frank,
"Hey, thanks for coming!" Tee-hee.
"Hey," Frank said, "thanks for having us!" in the same
exact false-cheery tone of voice.
Petards were flashing! Cutlasses whistling
in the air like hornets!
Oh, well, we went to supper
full of love and nobody said anything about
fucking Tranny U, and I got the best
slice of sugar free pie I ever ate.
Hugs all around and head for home.
#
Friday
Southern gothic morning, and perhaps the very
weird duende scenes I was brought here
to see.
Waiting for the cab in the lobby, wondering where it is,
checking my watch, worrying about my flight,
I hear the walkie-talkies spit and hiss and
suddenly a woman's voice:
"Tom! Tom! Come in Tom!
I have an emergency! Come right now, Tom!"
No Tom.
The woman appears
in the lobby. Her voice is hot and sharp:
"Where's Tom!"
"Dunno," the desk man says.
She hits the cell phone, fortunately for me, set on Speaker:
"Tom! Tom! I need Tom! In dry storage. Immediately!
There's an emergency!"
Tom's voice appears now, unhurried:
"Uhyeah I'mhere."
"Tom! I need you in dry storage
now! There is an emergency! Bring
a blanket!"
"YuhI'min 318. That'sa onethreeeight."
"Dry storage!
Immediately!
Emergency!
Blanket!"
"Own mah way."
She runs out of the lobby.
Three minute pause. Now I'm hoping
the cab won't show up yet.
She's back! Has a folded blanket in her arms.
Marches thru the room, calling out:
"I've got an emergency!
Reach me on my cell phone!"
Trots out the door.
Then Tom wanders out
of dry storage with a ball cap on his head
and steps out into the parking lot to watch her
speed away in her mini-van.
He comes in and joins the other workers
saying: "What was this emergency,
anyway?"
#
Cab driver pulls up.
The saddest cab driver in America.
Pale white skin, tousled hair, stubble.
"Where to?"
"Airport."
"Airport?" he replies, as if baffled by this exotic destination.
We drive off, Slowly.
He turns left.
"I don't know why I turned," he says. "I didn't want
to turn here.
Are you
in a hurry?"
Guess not.
He talks slow, in a low baritone.
We drive to a gas station.
"Mind if I stop?"
Guess not.
He pumps about five dollars' worth into the tank.
Sticks his head in the door. "You want me to get you somethin'?"
"Pardon?"
He nods toward the food mini-mart. "You want me to get you
somethin'? A soda or somethin'? It'll cost you
three dollars th the airport."
Oh! Hey! Thanks a lot,
man! But I'm fine!
"Arright then."
When he gets back in the cab, he says,
"I just paid
all in quarters.
Had a lady
pay me all in quarters
and now I took her quarters
and paid the guy all in quarters."
Huh!
I enthuse.
"You from here?"
No, just visiting.
"Where from?"
Chicago.
I was giving a talk at
good ol' Tranny.
"Hope you wasn't
talkin' about global warming."
Ha ha! I laugh. Not me!
It's snowing in Chicago!
"Snowed here.
Killed everything.
But why
were you talking? I mean,
what about?"
I'm a writer.
"Real writer?"
I hope so.
"Published?"
Oh yes.
"You rich?"
Not yet, but, you know, ha ha, doin' all right!
"I'm a writer.
Try to write.
I wanna be a novelist, write
speculative fiction and
fantasy. But I can't write novels.
Guess that'll make it hard to be a novelist,
if I can't get it done.
Write stories.
Write plays.
Had a play produced.
It was terrible.
I write songs, mostly.
Songs are dumb. Songs
are easier than stories.
I start lots of things. Oh, I can start
anything. Can't finish nothin'.
I make CDs of my songs, you know?
Mostly voice and guitar, some piano.
I can't finish stories.
Can't finish nothin'.
Not since my divorce.
I got divorced.
She left me.
I slept through it.
I woke up and
the house was empty.
She took it all.
Goin' on five years now.
We were married twenty years.
She won't talk to me now.
I made her a CD. All those songs I wrote.
She didn't answer.
She hates me.
Got kids, too.
They hate me.
They won't talk to me
either."
Suddenly, a helicopter is hovering above the cab.
We're at a red light, and the chopper comes down and batters us with its
down-draft; he cranes up and stares at it, only about fifty feet
above our roof.
"Hey," he says, "a helicopter."
We drive on,
horse farms all around us
throbbing green as emeralds melting
in the mist, white rail fences
looking like fancy art photos.
'I know why," he says.
"They hate me because I was an idiot.
That's why.
I figure once you've been married
for twenty years
there ought to be a contract
to make it permanent. A permanence clause.
I mean, twenty years,
too late for a change.
But--skirts.
Man.
I don't chase skirts.
But when skirts
come by me,
I can't stay away.
That's why, right there.
That's why.
But I'm gonna wait
till she gets Alzheimers
and then when she can't
fight it,
I'm gonna go back
and take care
of her.
Hey,
what's you name?
I want to
buy your book."
Weather delay.
The scary TSA woman
makes me throw away my $4.99 airport toothpaste.
The clouds settle upon us
like a heavy sigh.
The hills are cold today
in Kentucky.
4/13/2007
4/12:
I am not ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you what Ought to be Told. That I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily and Nightly.
William Blake
4/13
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
St. Augustine
Meditation 4/10
I am not ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you what Ought to be Told. That I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily and Nightly.
William Blake
4/13
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
St. Augustine
4/10/2007
There will be a slight gap in this week's meditations: I'm on my way to Kentucky tonight. Will reboot Thursday evening with a new thought.
Jane Hirshfield wrote (and you wonder if she is a student of Issa):
I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf....
Writing Meditation 4/9
Jane Hirshfield wrote (and you wonder if she is a student of Issa):
I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf....
4/09/2007
These are not to teach you writing--these are to give you good companions.
I begin a solid week of meditations (and, really, they're not just about writing and reading, are they?) today. It is the opening of Spring, after all. Rabbits, tulips, red robins, copulation. We're all about life at the Urreacorp. Joy. Not happiness--happiness is cotton candy. JOY.
Feng Ban said this:
In this world the rich and powerful are hooligans, everywhere locking up good flowers behind red doors. But women's dreams are difficult to control. They can travel at will to the far edge of the sky.
Easter Laughs
I begin a solid week of meditations (and, really, they're not just about writing and reading, are they?) today. It is the opening of Spring, after all. Rabbits, tulips, red robins, copulation. We're all about life at the Urreacorp. Joy. Not happiness--happiness is cotton candy. JOY.
Feng Ban said this:
In this world the rich and powerful are hooligans, everywhere locking up good flowers behind red doors. But women's dreams are difficult to control. They can travel at will to the far edge of the sky.
4/08/2007
Sometimes, you've got to laugh.
For example: since I've become Mr. Border, writers about the border and immigration wnat some of that Devil's Highway presence added to their books--or at least their publishers and publicists do. I like to lend a hand if I can. Now, Sam Quinones is one of the great writers about these issues. His second book was coming out. Called Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream. You ought to read it if you're interested in that world. But the publisher, University of New Mexico, felt it was IMPERATIVE to have a blurb on the cover from me. Wow, I thought, they like me! They really really like me!!!! So I gave it a blurb--it's a good book, why not? Well, the hardcover came yesterday. UPS and FedEx come here in a constant parade, dropping off books and manuscripts and even gifts. I'd like to see more checks, but that's just me. Anyway, the book looks good, and I was amazed to see that I was the only blurb on the cover. Big! In red! And THEY TOTALLY MIS-SPELLED MY NAME!
They made up a new name. It's vaguely Middle Eastern, I've decided. I am now Luia!
Cinderella and I laughed and laughed when we saw it. It's like poop-patrol in the back yard, or trying to get Eric to take out the trash, or trying to convince the new dog to stop peeing on the couch. Real life brings you back to earth.
How important was it, really, to have my name on the book cover? Har har! I hit the treadmill this morning still smiling about it.
This is good, because Easter is hard for me. I used to call it "Eastern" when I was a kid. Yeah, Eastern--brings back levels of regret and sorrow I don't know what to do with...those sad Easterns when my tattered family tried to be happy for a morning. Then that small troubled family shattered. Then my dad was dead. And my mom--the neighbors found her Easter week, dead and alone in her sad house. 1990. I spent that week attending to her details--David and poor ol' Vic the Bear (in a coma now for years) watched over me in my panic.
I watch the kids rip open their baskets and can't believe I have somehow given them all this: Eastern, chocolate, a big house with big trees and a big yard and big turkeys in the garden and visiting ducks and geese and squirrels and chipmunks and an invisible midnight coyote that gives the possum and the 'coons fits. It's good. It's happy. Even though Easter for me, like Christmas and my birthday, is blue. But it used to be black.
And blue is my favorite color.
I'm thinking of you this year. I'm thinking about embracing you, even you gnarly cops and bikers and cholos. But especially, you. My dear friend. And thanks, UNM, for the Monty Python moment!
Yrs., Luia
Hardcore Writers' Post: Helpful Hints
For example: since I've become Mr. Border, writers about the border and immigration wnat some of that Devil's Highway presence added to their books--or at least their publishers and publicists do. I like to lend a hand if I can. Now, Sam Quinones is one of the great writers about these issues. His second book was coming out. Called Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream. You ought to read it if you're interested in that world. But the publisher, University of New Mexico, felt it was IMPERATIVE to have a blurb on the cover from me. Wow, I thought, they like me! They really really like me!!!! So I gave it a blurb--it's a good book, why not? Well, the hardcover came yesterday. UPS and FedEx come here in a constant parade, dropping off books and manuscripts and even gifts. I'd like to see more checks, but that's just me. Anyway, the book looks good, and I was amazed to see that I was the only blurb on the cover. Big! In red! And THEY TOTALLY MIS-SPELLED MY NAME!
They made up a new name. It's vaguely Middle Eastern, I've decided. I am now Luia!
Cinderella and I laughed and laughed when we saw it. It's like poop-patrol in the back yard, or trying to get Eric to take out the trash, or trying to convince the new dog to stop peeing on the couch. Real life brings you back to earth.
How important was it, really, to have my name on the book cover? Har har! I hit the treadmill this morning still smiling about it.
This is good, because Easter is hard for me. I used to call it "Eastern" when I was a kid. Yeah, Eastern--brings back levels of regret and sorrow I don't know what to do with...those sad Easterns when my tattered family tried to be happy for a morning. Then that small troubled family shattered. Then my dad was dead. And my mom--the neighbors found her Easter week, dead and alone in her sad house. 1990. I spent that week attending to her details--David and poor ol' Vic the Bear (in a coma now for years) watched over me in my panic.
I watch the kids rip open their baskets and can't believe I have somehow given them all this: Eastern, chocolate, a big house with big trees and a big yard and big turkeys in the garden and visiting ducks and geese and squirrels and chipmunks and an invisible midnight coyote that gives the possum and the 'coons fits. It's good. It's happy. Even though Easter for me, like Christmas and my birthday, is blue. But it used to be black.
And blue is my favorite color.
I'm thinking of you this year. I'm thinking about embracing you, even you gnarly cops and bikers and cholos. But especially, you. My dear friend. And thanks, UNM, for the Monty Python moment!
Yrs., Luia
4/07/2007
I have been approached many times over the years, in person and via email and this blog, for guidance in writing. (Hence, the writing meditations.) But sometimes, people ask me how they can learn to write like me, or put my notions into play. I always wonder--why would you want to write like me? You should, of course, write like yourself. Though, you know, if you wrote like Stephen King you could probably buy six or seven Luis Urreas and force them to mow your lawn.
I write like I write because I'm a frigging genius! But also because of all the factors that made my life hell for a long time, and that made my life into a parade of joy in small doses thatI replayed and rehearsed in my mind to carry me through the evil shadows. And, I will confess for the 1000th time--I'm a mystical foole. My Way is a strange and welcoming Way. But it's not for everyone. Of course not! Though I still believe the Urrealist Discipline of Trust and Details leads us to holy hoedowns of hubbub and haiku. But, you know, folks want more focus and direction. So this is for them.
A Book Shelf of Excellent Writing Books to Make You Write Better
For companionship, you can get The Quotable Writer edited by Lamar Underwood. Lots of famous writers give you all kinds of advice and wisdom. Great fun and great toilet-reading.
My favorite writing-books are William Stafford's four great GREAT volumes. Writing the Australian Crawl; You Must Revise Your Life; Crossing Unmarked Snow; The Answers Are Inside the Mountains. I find them life-altering. However, they aren't linear how-to guides. You must read with intuition in full flower. Along with these fine books, you owe it to Stafford to read his poetry. Then, his son Kim--who is easily one of the greatest writing-teachers on earth today, has two books (at least) that can teach you a thing or two. Early Morning is his powerful and sometimes troubling but deeply enlightening meditation on his father and his father's writing process. Kim's own The Muses Among Us is fantastic. An exploration of Kim's philosophy of "eloquent listening." Then read Kim's poems.
I find writers' letters and journals amazing writing guides. Neruda's memoir is full of his vision in action. Kerouac's letters, sketches, haikus and journals are a treasure-trove of abandon to the scene. Charles Bukowski, yes that ol' rummy bastard, has some of the most beautiful thoughts on writing in his letters. John Cheever's journals are a godesnd. Flannery O'Connor's writings and letters--wow. Eudora Welty--good God! Why are you reading this blog? Go, if you want to write, and find The Eye of the Story and her various collected thoughts, including her memoir.
Robert Hass's Essential Haiku will certainly put you in Urreaville, if that's where you want to go. You can not only meet Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki there, but you can start to understand their work and their philosophy. I would also strongly recommend Blythe or Henderson's books about haiku--if you understand the scholarly wisdom of the vision, you might enter the zen-zone and see the work become clear as that troubling shallow stream of a few blogs back.
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life--for some good, intellectual thoughts on the writing life.
John Gardener, The Art of Fiction--good exercises that will test you.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones--turn on your writing soul.
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town--yes! Yes!
Stephen King--On Writing--like wrestler Ric Flair says, "To be the man, you've got to beat the man."
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird--a friendly guide through the jungle.
There's a start. If you read these few books, and add Ted Kooser's wonderful and friendly books of advice, and his poems!, you can give yourself an MA in writing. As long as you write.
I knew a guy who picked the perfect spot in his house in which to write. Took about four months--had to find the spot where the sun shone, but it was hard to figure out if the morning sun or the afternoon sun was more conducive to writing. Then he had to get the right books for his shelves--you know, On the Road, and, uh, probably some Twain--took a month or two. Had to find the best journal to write in and the best pens to write with. Had to find a fine chair for his tender writer ass. The perfect table--white? Oak? High? Low? Desk? Trundle? Door on sawhorses? Ikea? Antique? And don't forget the lamp! So, he sat down in the corner, but something wasn't right. Oh yeah! He was writing on a computer, but he needed a TYPEWRITER to look at! Maybe a candle or two, too. But what scent?
This torture went on, in place of actually just writing, for enough time that he ended up breaking up with his girlfriend and leaving their house in disgrace before he ever actually started writing his amazing novel. Toting his writing crap with him. No doubt to begin all over again in his new apartment, trying to find the perfect spot. Maybe the window? The bedroom? Dining room?
As my old African American pals in Logan Heights used to say: sheeeeeeeeeee-it.
You can sit around reading books all day, too. You can take a million workshops. You can worry. But, really, what you have to do is begin. Begin, and sweat blood. Use the shovel, swing the pick. Suffer, and pray that you endure your suffering. And always, give thanks and praise. That's my advice.
Sometimes, it's fun.
I'm done. May your Easter be perfect. L
Good Friday Writing Meditation
I write like I write because I'm a frigging genius! But also because of all the factors that made my life hell for a long time, and that made my life into a parade of joy in small doses thatI replayed and rehearsed in my mind to carry me through the evil shadows. And, I will confess for the 1000th time--I'm a mystical foole. My Way is a strange and welcoming Way. But it's not for everyone. Of course not! Though I still believe the Urrealist Discipline of Trust and Details leads us to holy hoedowns of hubbub and haiku. But, you know, folks want more focus and direction. So this is for them.
A Book Shelf of Excellent Writing Books to Make You Write Better
For companionship, you can get The Quotable Writer edited by Lamar Underwood. Lots of famous writers give you all kinds of advice and wisdom. Great fun and great toilet-reading.
My favorite writing-books are William Stafford's four great GREAT volumes. Writing the Australian Crawl; You Must Revise Your Life; Crossing Unmarked Snow; The Answers Are Inside the Mountains. I find them life-altering. However, they aren't linear how-to guides. You must read with intuition in full flower. Along with these fine books, you owe it to Stafford to read his poetry. Then, his son Kim--who is easily one of the greatest writing-teachers on earth today, has two books (at least) that can teach you a thing or two. Early Morning is his powerful and sometimes troubling but deeply enlightening meditation on his father and his father's writing process. Kim's own The Muses Among Us is fantastic. An exploration of Kim's philosophy of "eloquent listening." Then read Kim's poems.
I find writers' letters and journals amazing writing guides. Neruda's memoir is full of his vision in action. Kerouac's letters, sketches, haikus and journals are a treasure-trove of abandon to the scene. Charles Bukowski, yes that ol' rummy bastard, has some of the most beautiful thoughts on writing in his letters. John Cheever's journals are a godesnd. Flannery O'Connor's writings and letters--wow. Eudora Welty--good God! Why are you reading this blog? Go, if you want to write, and find The Eye of the Story and her various collected thoughts, including her memoir.
Robert Hass's Essential Haiku will certainly put you in Urreaville, if that's where you want to go. You can not only meet Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki there, but you can start to understand their work and their philosophy. I would also strongly recommend Blythe or Henderson's books about haiku--if you understand the scholarly wisdom of the vision, you might enter the zen-zone and see the work become clear as that troubling shallow stream of a few blogs back.
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life--for some good, intellectual thoughts on the writing life.
John Gardener, The Art of Fiction--good exercises that will test you.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones--turn on your writing soul.
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town--yes! Yes!
Stephen King--On Writing--like wrestler Ric Flair says, "To be the man, you've got to beat the man."
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird--a friendly guide through the jungle.
There's a start. If you read these few books, and add Ted Kooser's wonderful and friendly books of advice, and his poems!, you can give yourself an MA in writing. As long as you write.
I knew a guy who picked the perfect spot in his house in which to write. Took about four months--had to find the spot where the sun shone, but it was hard to figure out if the morning sun or the afternoon sun was more conducive to writing. Then he had to get the right books for his shelves--you know, On the Road, and, uh, probably some Twain--took a month or two. Had to find the best journal to write in and the best pens to write with. Had to find a fine chair for his tender writer ass. The perfect table--white? Oak? High? Low? Desk? Trundle? Door on sawhorses? Ikea? Antique? And don't forget the lamp! So, he sat down in the corner, but something wasn't right. Oh yeah! He was writing on a computer, but he needed a TYPEWRITER to look at! Maybe a candle or two, too. But what scent?
This torture went on, in place of actually just writing, for enough time that he ended up breaking up with his girlfriend and leaving their house in disgrace before he ever actually started writing his amazing novel. Toting his writing crap with him. No doubt to begin all over again in his new apartment, trying to find the perfect spot. Maybe the window? The bedroom? Dining room?
As my old African American pals in Logan Heights used to say: sheeeeeeeeeee-it.
You can sit around reading books all day, too. You can take a million workshops. You can worry. But, really, what you have to do is begin. Begin, and sweat blood. Use the shovel, swing the pick. Suffer, and pray that you endure your suffering. And always, give thanks and praise. That's my advice.
Sometimes, it's fun.
I'm done. May your Easter be perfect. L
4/06/2007
When I was living in Boston, footloose for the first time in my life, free as only a couple of bucks in your pocket and a funky apartment and lots of time to wander can make you, I was overwhelmed by something new for a California kid: greenness. Green! Everything was green, when it wasn't red brick! Fluttering, light-altering green--man! Ferns burst out of the corners of walls. Oaks and maples everywhere. I never saw anything like it. I'd walk down the Cambridge and Somerville streets, crooked and obtuse, drunk on the psychedelic tides of green emerald ninteen-layered light. I still get half dizzy thinking about it. The rattiest slum looked like some kind of Elyzium to me because of the shaggy growth exploding from every bit of exposed earth.
We in San Diego lived in a world where the desert was trying to come in and suck everything dry, or burn it. Watch the vast and deadly Western droughts that are building up--fire season's going to be rough this year. We had to put bricks in our toilets to make them contain less water volume. But in New England, just the opposite thing happened: forest tried to overwhelm the puny history of mankind. The trees and weeds and flowers went off like car bombs. Bang! There's a thistle! Bang! There's a red maple!
It was good for my writing.
I was making love to everything. Including my notebooks. I was so EXCITED. I was aroused.
It occurred to me that I could write a book of essays called The Erotics of Place. (And boy, when I got to the Rockies, those mountain trails made me so crazed I could hardly walk--I wanted to make love to the entire sky.)
So, in those wayfaring days of lonesomeness and joy, wandering into every alley and talking to bums, poets, hookers, immigrants, scholars, musicians, criminals, drunks, I'd stumble on stuff that was entirely not-San-Diego. I could have been in Morocco.
There were book sales all over the place. And they'd set up tables with really weird stuff. Obscure stuff. Who-knows-where-it-came-from stuff. And, on one Saturday table, in one stanky alley full of jostling book lovers and brown smashed banana peels and a whiff of pot, there was a table. On this table there were "really really cheap things." My kind of sign. I went right to it and beheld, oh you know, the stapled chapbooks of local poets, the memoirs of a 100 year old farm wife, the out of date slang dictionary of the Beatnik era. But among all these gems, there was a tiny blue stapled pamphlet. It was for sale for 25 cents. 25 cents! Proof that miracles come in small packages and that we miss most of them because we're too busy going to Hooters or watching Bill O'Reilly.
It was by the poet, Jon Anderson. I will admit, being a Clairemont rock and roll hick, I might have thought at first--"Hey, Jon Anderson, angelic-voiced lead singer of Yes, has released a piquant pamphlet of prog rock wisdom!" Maybe. But, no. And it was called something like Helpful Hints on the Writing of Poetry. I opened it and found a friendly list of ideas about poems. I dug out my quarter, what my Godfather in National City would have called, Una Quattah. I bought it and jammed it in my back pocket and went on to buy a Baby Watson Stroller for lunch and hit the cheap-o matinee at the Harvard Square theater. The cemetery near the theater has the very New Englandy notice posted above the graves: POLICE TAKE NOTICE. Even that sign made me crazy with joy! Was it a warning, or a request?
What I'm getting at is that somewhere in that riot of stimulation and awe, somewhere in that singing of angels and clanging of subways--which for me was the same thing--the booklet revealed the scripture that changed my life as a writer. It didn't lead me to anything, but like all true spiritual wisdom, it illuminated and quantified something already in my heart and mind. A writing rule, if you will.
Yes, a meditation.
It seems proper to offer it to you on Good Friday. It is, I think, the basis of what I try to do in writing. I have waffled over the years. I have wondered if Jon Anderson meant real ghosts, or metaphoric ghosts--like, memories and details that evoke memories. Being a scripture, it is open to interpretation. On days like today, I think he could be talking about the Holy Ghost, y'all!
This is what lies at the bottom of my well, pumping up sweet fresh water:
REMEMBER THE WORLD OF GHOSTS AND SMALL GESTURES.
From the 19th Floor
We in San Diego lived in a world where the desert was trying to come in and suck everything dry, or burn it. Watch the vast and deadly Western droughts that are building up--fire season's going to be rough this year. We had to put bricks in our toilets to make them contain less water volume. But in New England, just the opposite thing happened: forest tried to overwhelm the puny history of mankind. The trees and weeds and flowers went off like car bombs. Bang! There's a thistle! Bang! There's a red maple!
It was good for my writing.
I was making love to everything. Including my notebooks. I was so EXCITED. I was aroused.
It occurred to me that I could write a book of essays called The Erotics of Place. (And boy, when I got to the Rockies, those mountain trails made me so crazed I could hardly walk--I wanted to make love to the entire sky.)
So, in those wayfaring days of lonesomeness and joy, wandering into every alley and talking to bums, poets, hookers, immigrants, scholars, musicians, criminals, drunks, I'd stumble on stuff that was entirely not-San-Diego. I could have been in Morocco.
There were book sales all over the place. And they'd set up tables with really weird stuff. Obscure stuff. Who-knows-where-it-came-from stuff. And, on one Saturday table, in one stanky alley full of jostling book lovers and brown smashed banana peels and a whiff of pot, there was a table. On this table there were "really really cheap things." My kind of sign. I went right to it and beheld, oh you know, the stapled chapbooks of local poets, the memoirs of a 100 year old farm wife, the out of date slang dictionary of the Beatnik era. But among all these gems, there was a tiny blue stapled pamphlet. It was for sale for 25 cents. 25 cents! Proof that miracles come in small packages and that we miss most of them because we're too busy going to Hooters or watching Bill O'Reilly.
It was by the poet, Jon Anderson. I will admit, being a Clairemont rock and roll hick, I might have thought at first--"Hey, Jon Anderson, angelic-voiced lead singer of Yes, has released a piquant pamphlet of prog rock wisdom!" Maybe. But, no. And it was called something like Helpful Hints on the Writing of Poetry. I opened it and found a friendly list of ideas about poems. I dug out my quarter, what my Godfather in National City would have called, Una Quattah. I bought it and jammed it in my back pocket and went on to buy a Baby Watson Stroller for lunch and hit the cheap-o matinee at the Harvard Square theater. The cemetery near the theater has the very New Englandy notice posted above the graves: POLICE TAKE NOTICE. Even that sign made me crazy with joy! Was it a warning, or a request?
What I'm getting at is that somewhere in that riot of stimulation and awe, somewhere in that singing of angels and clanging of subways--which for me was the same thing--the booklet revealed the scripture that changed my life as a writer. It didn't lead me to anything, but like all true spiritual wisdom, it illuminated and quantified something already in my heart and mind. A writing rule, if you will.
Yes, a meditation.
It seems proper to offer it to you on Good Friday. It is, I think, the basis of what I try to do in writing. I have waffled over the years. I have wondered if Jon Anderson meant real ghosts, or metaphoric ghosts--like, memories and details that evoke memories. Being a scripture, it is open to interpretation. On days like today, I think he could be talking about the Holy Ghost, y'all!
This is what lies at the bottom of my well, pumping up sweet fresh water:
REMEMBER THE WORLD OF GHOSTS AND SMALL GESTURES.
4/05/2007
Hola, mi gente. I'm pondering the far west side of Chi from my office window on the 19th floor of this UIC building which looks like Lucifer's Waffle. Preparing for class. Thinking about you.
Last night, I did a phoner with a class in Cali, down in the Imperial Valley. It was a nice chat with them. Smart open hearts. Critical, too--which shows they have brains and aren't just going to roll over for some allegedly famous guy. I really enjoyed it. Next week I go to Kentucky, the former US Border, to do a reading for my brotha Frank X. Walker. Kentucky is one of the few states I have never visited, can you believe it? I've been everywhere around it, but have never been there, except for dirve-time radio and NPR shows. My voice has been in Kentucky, but my body hasn't made it yet. (Yeah, I said it was the border! That's where our first big border wars were happening. What a difference two centuries and some change makes.)
So, you who follow the twists and turns of the La Vista blog probably recall that a man told me in Houston that he saw a small indigenous woman standing on stage with me, to my left. The appearance, yet again, of the great female presence. Well, in Virginia, a woman told me she saw the Indian woman's face hiding among the folds of the state flag on the stage! She's back!
What would Lee Smith or Howard Norman think, if they knew some kind of Hummingbird's Ghost was watching us read?
I haven't ever seen this phenomenon, so I can't say if it's true or not. My atheist/rational pals are saying "Oh come on!" My Baptist pals are saying: "Satan!" My Jesuit pals anre saying: "Hmm, interesting. Perhaps we can include her in an indigenous Catholic theology!" (I remember meeting an atheist guy in Colorado, a pilot for a major airline, who sadly said, when he'd read Hummingbird, "Please don't make me believe.")
You know that Bob Dylan song where he sings "My heart's in the Highlands..."? That's me. My heart's not in this concrete tower. It's somewhere else, much more fair. Watered and greening. This is why the school, in its generosity, has approved my sabbatical. I'll be gone, daddy, gone until January. I will write books! Many books! House of Broken Angels is done and at the publisher's and the agents' offices. The book of poems is ready to be edited. I'm talking to somebody about reissuing my first books of poetry (after I got an email from a blog reader lamenting that those books are out of print). Hummingbird II is about to start. And that good ol' Wastelander stuff is waiting. Plus...uh...I think I'd like to do a book on writing--all the stuff I talk about when I get workshoppers out there in the Highlands.
Wow.
Back to work--the semester is not yet over, amigos! (By the way, have the "meditations" been of any help?) Keep writing, and if you can't write, keep talking, and if you have no one to talk to, send me an email.
I'm oooooooooooooooooooooout: L
Palm Sunday--Writing Church is in Session
Last night, I did a phoner with a class in Cali, down in the Imperial Valley. It was a nice chat with them. Smart open hearts. Critical, too--which shows they have brains and aren't just going to roll over for some allegedly famous guy. I really enjoyed it. Next week I go to Kentucky, the former US Border, to do a reading for my brotha Frank X. Walker. Kentucky is one of the few states I have never visited, can you believe it? I've been everywhere around it, but have never been there, except for dirve-time radio and NPR shows. My voice has been in Kentucky, but my body hasn't made it yet. (Yeah, I said it was the border! That's where our first big border wars were happening. What a difference two centuries and some change makes.)
So, you who follow the twists and turns of the La Vista blog probably recall that a man told me in Houston that he saw a small indigenous woman standing on stage with me, to my left. The appearance, yet again, of the great female presence. Well, in Virginia, a woman told me she saw the Indian woman's face hiding among the folds of the state flag on the stage! She's back!
What would Lee Smith or Howard Norman think, if they knew some kind of Hummingbird's Ghost was watching us read?
I haven't ever seen this phenomenon, so I can't say if it's true or not. My atheist/rational pals are saying "Oh come on!" My Baptist pals are saying: "Satan!" My Jesuit pals anre saying: "Hmm, interesting. Perhaps we can include her in an indigenous Catholic theology!" (I remember meeting an atheist guy in Colorado, a pilot for a major airline, who sadly said, when he'd read Hummingbird, "Please don't make me believe.")
You know that Bob Dylan song where he sings "My heart's in the Highlands..."? That's me. My heart's not in this concrete tower. It's somewhere else, much more fair. Watered and greening. This is why the school, in its generosity, has approved my sabbatical. I'll be gone, daddy, gone until January. I will write books! Many books! House of Broken Angels is done and at the publisher's and the agents' offices. The book of poems is ready to be edited. I'm talking to somebody about reissuing my first books of poetry (after I got an email from a blog reader lamenting that those books are out of print). Hummingbird II is about to start. And that good ol' Wastelander stuff is waiting. Plus...uh...I think I'd like to do a book on writing--all the stuff I talk about when I get workshoppers out there in the Highlands.
Wow.
Back to work--the semester is not yet over, amigos! (By the way, have the "meditations" been of any help?) Keep writing, and if you can't write, keep talking, and if you have no one to talk to, send me an email.
I'm oooooooooooooooooooooout: L
4/01/2007
Can you hear the bells ringing?
It's not about writing, baby, it's about being.
Here's a passage I love from Robert Rosenstone's book, Mirror in the Stone. I know you will love it too:
A Japanese artist was commissioned by an American to do a painting. The completed work had, in a lower corner, the branch of a cherry tree with a few blossoms and a bird perched upon it. The entire upper half of the painting was white. Unhappily, the American asked the artist to put something else in the painting because it looked, well, so bare. The Japaese refused the request. When pressed for an explanation, the artist said if he did fill up the painting there would be no space for the bird to fly.
It's not about writing, baby, it's about being.
Here's a passage I love from Robert Rosenstone's book, Mirror in the Stone. I know you will love it too:
A Japanese artist was commissioned by an American to do a painting. The completed work had, in a lower corner, the branch of a cherry tree with a few blossoms and a bird perched upon it. The entire upper half of the painting was white. Unhappily, the American asked the artist to put something else in the painting because it looked, well, so bare. The Japaese refused the request. When pressed for an explanation, the artist said if he did fill up the painting there would be no space for the bird to fly.
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