The Best American Poetry

Sandy Koufax back in Dodger Blue

At the Dodgers training camp this week in Glendale, Arizona, Mr. Koufax conferred with Dodger coaches and players, Now if the baseball Dodgers were the basketball Knicks (who are adding Kenyon Martin to an already impressive lineup of over-the-hill greats), they'd probably be offering a contract to the southpaw, 77, who, to help justify the analogy, played basketball in college. As a Dodger pitcher he won the Cy Young Award three times and was NL MVP in 1963. And he pitched the team to two world championships. And he refused to pitch game one of the 1965 World Series against the Twins because the date fell on Yom Kippur. Here he is, giving the fans something to smile about. -- DL

R. Erica Doyle, Guest Blogger February 25-March 1

This week we welcome back R. Erica Doyle as a guest blogger.  R. Erica was born in Brooklyn to Trinidadian immigrant parents, and has lived in Washington, DC, Farmington, Connecticut and La Marsa, Tunisia. Her first book, proxy, was published by Belladonna* in 2013 and her poetry and fiction have appeared in Best American Poetry, Our Caribbean, Callaloo, Ploughshares, Best Black Women's Erotica, Bloom, and From the Fishouse, and elsewhere. Doyle has been the recipient of grants and awards from the Hurston/Wright Foundation and the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, she was a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow and a fellow of Cave Canem: A Workshop and Retreat for Black Writers. She received her MFA in Poetry from the New School, and lives in New York City, where she works in NYC public schools and facilitates Tongues Afire: A Creative Writing Workshop for queer women and trans and gender non-conforming people of color.

Welcome, R. Erica

-- sdh

Harvard expels cheats [by DL]

Some news stories speak for themselves, no editorial comment needed.
Last spring Harvard suspended nearly half of the 279 students who took a government course called "Introduction to Congress" and were caught cheating on the take-home final.
The tip off was a spate of identical answers, down to the same typographical errors, on the test.
Around seventy of the accused were expelled in a decision announced on Friday, February 1.
It took six agonizing months for the top brass to figure out what to do.
A smart lawyer tried to get the kids off the hook by saying that the course deliberately encouraged cheating as an approprate "introduction to Congress" and the workings of government.
Two late-night TV talk show hosts referred to the case, making puns on "sexual congress" and the alleged promiscuity.of college kids.
Sports fans were particulaly displeased with the expulsions, because a number of jocks, under the impression that it was a gut course, were among those who got the ax. The Harvard basketball team is a shell of its former self.
Veritas, on the Harvard shield, is Latin for "truth." There is one deliberately false statement in the above account. Can you tell what it is? -- DL

"Zero Dark Thirty" [by DL]

I'm not an Academy member and I don't have a vote, but if I did I would cast it unhesitatingly for "Zero Dark Thirty" for the best picture award. And I lament that Kathryn Bigelow, who directed the film, did not get nominated.

While I enjoyed "Argo," the other best-picture nominee depicting covert ops), it is, in the end, a formula movie, spiced up by Hollywood's valentine to itself in the form of a move within a movie, a farceur's look at Farsi life, with the jovial irreverence of Alan Arkin and John Goodman. It has a poitically correct framing device concluding with a Jimmy Carter voiceover that reminded me of the mock-editorial that may have cost an enterprising Times or Globe man his job: "More Mush from the Wimp." The movie also has a conventional narrative arc, ending in a crescendo of suspense. The joke signaled by the title ("Argo fuck yourself") goes a long way toward neutralizing one's reservations.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is a more complicated, darker, less conventional movie. The arc is there but is ambiguous: the main character, a CIA agent  played by Jessica Chastain (left), achieves her aims but is last seen crying in an airplane in which she is the only passenger. The killing of Bin Laden does not override all the losses she (and the nation) have endured along the way.

The movie meticulously shows how intelligence works. It is highly dangerous and anything but glamorous. There are false scents, blind alleys, red herrings, b;atant lies, and the intelligence agent has no choice but to follow these even if, as may happen, a calamity may result. The hoodwinking of a sympathetic CIA agent, a friend of our heroine, leads to her murder and that of several of her colleagues.

The movie has been the victim of a smear campaign. Early on it shows scenes of waterboarding. The movie does not endorse this method of interrogation; it simply depicts it. Objections to the film's violence are also overblown. The violence pales next to the torture tactics used by the French in Algeria and shown graphically in more than one affecting movie. The conclusion of the movie, with Bin Laden finally located and killed, is managed without sensationalism. There are no celebrations and parades. The movie is as somber as the subject and it is dedicated quite eloquently to the victims of 9/11 in NY, of 7/11 in London, of other terrroist attacks across the globe (Pakistan, Afghanistan) and to the heroic sacrifices made by first responders.

Do not let the organized campaign against this extraordinarily intelligent and well-made movie deter you from seeing it. -- DL

Now hear this: Jimmy Van Heusen was born 100 years ago [by David Lehman]

and has been dead for twenty-three years but his songs are as timeless as "Darn That Dream," "Swinging on a Star," "But Beautiful," "Here's That Rainy Day," "Love and Marriage," "Come Fly with Me," "My Kind of Town," and "The Tender Trap." This is Van Heusen's centennial year, and d.j. Sid Gribetz presents a five hour tribute to the composer in a special edition of “Jazz Profiles” on WKCR radio today, Sunday February 24, from 2-7 PM. That's 89.9 FM in NYC. Van Heusen paired with Johnny Burke and later with Sammy Cahn. With Sammy he wrote a lot of material especially for Sinatra and took home Oscars for "All the Way," "High Hopes," and "Call Me Irresponsible."

Van Heusen [shown here, right, with Sammy Cahn] was born in Syracuse, NY on January 26, 1913 as Edward Chester Babcock. He named himself after a shirt, thinking it a classy moniker. When he moved to New York City in the 1930s, Harold Arlen -- another escapee from snow country -- befriended him and got his first major break with a gig at the Cotton Club. “Darn That Dream,” first first big hit, was written for Benny Goodman. Van Heusen teamed with lyricist Johnny Burke to produce  “Polka Dots And Moonbeams,” “Imagination,” "But Beautiful," “It Could Happen To You," “Here’s That Rainy Day,” and “Like Someone In Love.”

 

Van Heusen, who died in 1990 at 77, was a high-living, fun-loving Sinatra buddy whose greatness was recognized by vocalists ranging from Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington to Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, not to mention Joe Williams with the Count Basie sound and Chet Baker in West Coast cool. Five of today's precious hours will be devoted to Van Heusen songs on the Columbia University radio station, WKCR, 89.9 on the FM radio dial in New York City, and available around the world over the internet at www.wkcr.org and on itunes radio.

Dating Will Be Difficult When Everyone Is Dead [ by Chelsea Reilly]

Imagine your surprise when she tells you the rats got into the baby carriage again. There is a reason for everything, which I will explain much later. You have an important decision to make. It is not my business, but she has the sex appeal of an owl. I will make you so happy your face will be unrecognizable. I will make sure you never feel hunted again. We have things in common. For example, we are always waiting for lunch to happen. You have never startled anyone.  I know the difference between an emergency and a blinding pain in the chest. There are many people I regret marrying. I never planned on sleeping alone. 

-- Chelsea Reilly

Meet the Press: Catherine Woodard in Conversation with Betsy Teter of Hub City Press

When I am lucky enough to travel, I always think about communities, about how each of us is defined by layers of communities. I grew up in Kenly, N.C., a town of 1,400 people in rural North Carolina, and have now lived more than half of my life in NYC where I’ve always known a writing community, first in journalism, now in poetry. The most innovative model I know for non-profits who want to make a difference in their community, literary and otherwise, is in Spartanburg, S.C. Meet Betsy Teter, executive director and editor of the Hub City Writers Project, the only independent press I know that also runs a non-profit book store.

CW: How did Hub City Press get its start?

BT: Basically three writers met each other when a new coffee shop opened in Spartanburg. We certainly had no idea that we ultimately would have seven employees, a press that has sold 100,000 books all over the country, and a non-profit independent bookshop on the town square. Our bookselling operations now help fund a successful summer writers conference, a poetry book prize, residencies, a mentor/critique program, a story-into-film film festival, college scholarships for local teens, donations of thousands of books to local schools, regular creative writing workshops and dozens of readings annually.

All of this started with the idea for one book, an anthology of authors writing personal essays about the experience of living in Spartanburg. In the beginning, back in 1995, we focused on telling the story of Spartanburg, through personal essay, natural history, art, poetry, etc. Readers in town loved that writers cared about what happened here and also that we were interested in preserving through words what was special about our community.

We reflect our community, and that’s what makes us successful. We use the assets that are here, we give back, and we are helping to define what it means to live in Spartanburg, S.C.

CW: Where does the name come from?

BT: We modeled ourselves after the Depression-era Federal Writers Project, because we were writers working to build community. The name Hub City is a throwback to when Spartanburg was a railroad hub in the late 1800s. We are working to create a literary hub now.

CW: How does Hub City work?

BT: We like to say we are a "vertically integrated" literary arts organization—developing new writers from the ground up through workshops and conferences, sometimes publishing them, and then selling their books. Last year, a local writer who we first met at one of our summer writers’ conferences brought us $50,000 from sales of her novel, which we published at Hub City Press and sell in the bookstore. That success is creating opportunities for a lot of other writers.

We are a 501c3 non-profit and we have tremendous financial support from our home community, even now that our publishing focus is more regional and national. A healthy bank account feeds creativity and energy, so we just kept growing and expanding, pulling more writers and readers in.

We also have a great team here and a whole slew of loyal volunteers. They are proofreading, lugging books around, running the cash register, serving wine at events, Christmas wrapping—we couldn’t do it without them.

CW: Aren't you the only independent press in the nation with a bookstore? Since Spartanburg was struggling economically, why did you open the bookshop in 2010? 

BT: First of all, we needed a place to sell the books we were publishing. The long-time independent store in the suburbs had closed a few years earlier, and we weren’t going to last long selling books at hardware stores and art galleries. And finally, Spartanburg needed a gathering place like this right downtown. As a non-profit, we were able to raise $300,000 to renovate the street level of the old Masonic Temple for our store and offices, as well for two tenants—Little River Coffee Bar and Cakehead Bakery. We’ve created a remarkably successful gathering place now with literary, art and music events at least 10 times a month.

CW: Not so many people would think piedmont South Carolina as a literary incubator.

BT: Well, this little Southern town has many of the essential ingredients. For instance, we have three colleges with creative writing departments, including an MFA program, so there are a lot of writers here, and a lot passing through. We have a board full of great writers and editors, including C. Michael Curtis, who has been editing fiction for The Atlantic for fifty years.

CW: Surely you are suffering from the wholesale slaughter of the physical book culture by tablets and downloads?

We’ve only been in the bookstore business for two years, so we never knew what it was like in its heyday. All we know is we have a great gathering space for touring authors to come read, for writers to hang out together, and, yes, to be a showroom for great literature. We’re a non-profit organization! If all we do is lead people to wonderful books and build community, we have done our job. I’ve been publishing books for 17 years now, and it doesn’t get any better than coming to work every morning surrounded by 5,000 new and classic works of literature.

On the publishing side, just about everything we release comes out as an e-book now. And seeing those statements from Kindle and BN.com at the end of the month is like looking at magic money to me.

CW: Is poetry as popular as the pimento cheese biscuits in the bakery?

BT: Depends on whom you ask. Our traditional niche has been publishing poetry with a strong sense of place, and most of those poets have been from the Carolinas. But we are finally broadening our scope and have just introduced the New Southern Voices Poetry Book Prize, which is open to poets of all kinds in 13 Southern states and will be judged by D.A. Powell, who is a native of Georgia. It’s a first- or second-book contest, and the deadline is coming up April 1. www.hubcity.org/prize.

CW: What’s next? 

BT: A residency program, starting this summer, in a wonderful little bungalow on the edge of downtown called the Writers House. This is a new life for a residency program that had once been run by a sister arts program, HUB-BUB, and which brought us some terrific poets over the years. Two of them are still here in Spartanburg, working for Hub City and teaching adjunct at local colleges. If you’re a poet (or fiction/nonfiction writer) who has had a graduate degree in creative writing in the past five years, apply at www.hubcity.org/residencies.

 

Cool Titles: is 5 (by Jenny Factor)

I've been thinking lately about Cool. About cool before the concept of cool. Or before the cool people of today knew about the concept of Cool because we weren't born yet. Take E.E. Cummings in 1926, for instance, entitling his third book of poetry, in titling his fifth book as book

is 5

which must surely have been among the coolest titles of poetry books published in 1926, or in any other year for that matter. 

Which is why I want to take a moment to say that I really like E.E. Cummings. 

He makes verbs out of typography. He metaphors the hell out of grammar. He lets a lot of air into his sentences. (Or philosophy. Or science. Or thought. Or ego. Iconoclasm. Or humility. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe I'm just not seeing him clearly. Readers: your thoughts?)

What he does do is karate chop the line breaks and even whole/holey/un-whole words--a trait for which he has been both praised and lambasted. (Edmund Wilson called his punctuation "hideous".)

It's true! Sure, we probably knew his poems sounded good. But did you ever wonder why? One story I can tell you about E.E. Cummings is that he was apparently hiding a pocketful of meters and a burial plot of sonnets inside his outwardly-apparent "free verse". Marilyn Hacker broke the news to me in a conventional sonnet class. I was 25 years old and floored. Instead of "Where's Waldo?", poets with a hankering to do so, could read swaths of Cummings and ask, "Where's the buried sonnet?" She showed me some secret examples. 

The Poetry Foundation web site's bio of Cummings seems to point toward confirming this. From the age of 8 to 22, Cummings practiced writing in traditional verseform. So it's no wonder, no puzzle, and no surprise that a deep canon hovered under the cannon he carried back inside his heart and mind and experience from the first world war (where, incidentally, he hung out with Pablo P. and other avant garde artists).

E.E. Cummings: a stealth formalist. 

And yet, also, paradoxically, a rebel. Adam Kirsch's terrific exploration of Cummings in The Harvard Review shows a man who contained (and complained) these complexities. 

Who else deserves the Too Cool for School award for titles of poetry books? 

Interview with Sudeep Sen [by Catherine Woodard]

The birth of a book is a blessed day. The day I interviewed Sudeep Sen in January at his apartment in New Delhi about editing The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry, his latest poetry book Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1978-2013 arrived in boxes from Gallerie Publishers. Shelves and shelves of poetry books share top billing with an eclectic collection of visual art, including Sen’s photographs. He took the photo on the cover of the anthology. Behind his desk is a framed draft of a poem by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, the prolific Indian writer and later-in-life visual artist.

 

Birthday cruise for Derek Walcott, 83

Sen, 48, introduced me to his extremely charming mother in the ground floor apartment so I saw Fractals join the shrine on a dining room side table of her son’s more than two dozen poetry books, translations and anthologies. Later in January, Sen was the contemporary poet honored to read at a Nobel Laureate conference in St. Lucia. Coincidentally, Tagore was awarded a literature Nobel exactly 100 years earlier. Derek Walcott, the 1992 literature winner, lead the Q&A after Sen’s reading. “The biggest gig in my life thus far – certainly the most precious, moving and meaningful,” Sen emailed me after. 

 

CW: All 85 poets in the anthology were born after India became a republic in 1950. How does that influence their relationship to English as a language?

SS: There’s a confidence in the language, an unabashedness. One or two generations ago English was a post-colonial language. It’s no longer the case. For me, English is an Indian language. It is one of our 26 official languages.

CW: So it’s about owning the language not in reaction to a colonial history of oppression?

SS: No, it’s more than that. English just happens to be one of the tongues they are using very freely as an everyday thing. Take me for instance, I have three mother tongues: English, Bengali and Hindi, that’s how I grew up. It’s very unself-conscious. English is a language I learned from my parents and grandparents who are Indians.

When I travel abroad, people say “oh you speak English very well” and I say “and so do you.” The English language is interesting because there are so many different Englishes. There is Caribbean English, Australian English, American English, English English, Asian English, Indian English.

CW: What did selecting the poets teach you about those Englishes? 

SS: That it is complex. Take David Dabydeen in the book, whose work is known as part of Caribbean literature. He’s from Guyana and grew up in the UK, an Indian diaspora poet who writes just fabulous English poetry of the highest order. His ancestors were Indian laborers. He writes about cooking dhal and roti and curry.  Some of his poems are very steeped in Western painting, including this fabulous love poem called “Turner” I excerpt in the book.

The Indian diaspora is very complex too. The older diaspora is five or six generations as opposed to Indians in America and the U.K. of just a few generations. Africa, South Africa, Fiji and the Caribbean all have large Indian populations. Those migrations happened as slave ships. They would take an entire village, the priest, the barber, the teacher. Their descendants still sing the songs my great-grandmother sung.

CW: What impact would you like the anthology to have?

SS: I’d like more of these poets to be read in India and abroad. Literally very few are known beyond small poetry circles. There are so many young poets writing and it’s so difficult for them to break into the scene.

CW: That said, does it surprise you then the anthology is getting reviews from mainstream print, radio and television. And that a few months out, it is slated for a reprint.

SS: It has just baffled me the impact, fabulous reviews in places that don’t even touch poetry usually.

CW: Why?

SS: I think primarily because 90 percent of the work is unpublished work, which is rare in anthologies. It’s new work that is difficult to access all in one place.

CW: I couldn’t find an online source to purchase with shipping outside of India for either book, including www.harpercollins.co.in. (Readers, please comment below if you know where online.)

SS: U.S. and U.K. rights are still being negotiated for the anthology. It is however available via online portals.

CW: There is a lot of embrace of traditional form among the poets. Why?

SS: I think this is more a generational thing. The younger generation is excited about the language and so comfortable with it that they are actually trying out hard forms like villanelles and sestinas. Many of them are also bringing in classical Indian verse forms. Ghazel in English is a good example. Contemporary writers embracing older forms but still making it contemporary is bound to lead to good things.

If you are going to write free verse, you need to know what classical verse is. You need to know what you’re breaking. You don’t have to stick to any of the old rules as long as you know the rules. So much of the bad name to modern poetry is because you can write a sentence chop it up into five parts and arrange it in a column and call it a poem. That happens all around us.

CW: Do you see any trends of the poets who are not living in India and writing from other places or is it simply a reflection of where they happen to be?

SS: They bring in a certain injection of the local culture. Indian poetry is being written by so many different kinds of Indians and that’s certainly making it richer. Take the Americans. They are writing about very American things that may or may not be understood here. However, many of them are rediscovering Indian roots.

CW: Are readers in India more open to poetry because of the many languages here with different rich poetic traditions?

SS: Yes, because poetry in other languages outside of English has a long, long history. It is very much imbedded in our larger cultural sphere and very much part of our upbringing. For example poetry is integral to the music traditions in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, extremely advanced.

CW: And where is English poetry in the scheme of things?

SS: English poetry is in a smallish circle relative to the bigness of India, a niche audience.

CW: But in a global context, isn’t India the second largest publisher of English in the world?

SS: And will be the second largest in not very long.

 

"A Blank Letter" read above by Sen. Learn more about him at www.sudeepsen.net. Read The Prairie Schooner Feast Anthology of Poetry by Indian Women edited by Sen.

How to Succeed in Hollywood in Eleven Easy Lessons [by Preston Sturges]

A pretty girl is better than an ugly one.
A leg is better than an arm.
A bedroom is better than a living room.
An arrival is better than a departure.
A birth is better than a death.
A chase is better than a chat.
A dog is better than a landscape.
A kitten is better than a dog.
A baby is better than a kitten.
A kiss is better than a baby.
A pratfall is better than anything.

-- Preston Sturges