The Best American Poetry

Denise Duhamel Poem on "Breaking Bad" Season Finale

Great catch Ken Tucker!  On September 3, this @KenTucker tweet breezed by: "I fear betrayal in friendship and love that blindsides me": not Walt Whitman, but another poet, Denise Duhamel" and now lots of people want to know which poem it's from. 

"82 Reasons Not to Get Out of Bed" is too long to reproduce in its entirety but you can find  the poem in Saints of Hysteria A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry Edited by Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton & David Trinidad (Soft Skull, 2007).

Here are the first few lines:

82 Reasons Not to Get Out of Bed  (by Denise Duhamel et. al.)

I fear dented cans,
the ones with their labels torn like a pantyhose run.
I fear dented cans even though I know
bulging cans are the ones that cause botulism.
I fear small caskets, and I fear small pox.
I can’t be vaccinated because I’m allergic to the serum.
Check my arms—I don’t have any of those vaccination dents
like everyone else. I fear going to a new hairdresser
or gynecologist. I fear people with authority who look nervous.
I fear any box big enough to hold me.
I fear the number 4 for no reason.
I fear this bad habit will catch up to me.
I fear being awake in the middle of the night
when everyone else is asleep, even that yappy dog Peppy,
and the baby in him. I fear the dogs that do not recognize
my smell or care. I fear the whirr and rattle of the tail.
I fear the front door slamming when the bedroom window is locked.
I fear strangers who do not know my strength . . .

And this is what Denise Duhamel had to say about how the poem was written:

Process Note:

Lines for “82 Reasons Not to Get Out of Bed” were written on October 24, 2001 by the members of Special Topics: Trends in Contemporary Poetry—Literary Collaboration and Collage, a graduate seminar I taught at Florida International University. Mitch Alderman, Terri Carrion, Andreé Conrad, Kendra Dwelley Guimaraes, Wayne Loshusan, Abigail Martin, Rita Martinez, Estee Mazor, Astrid Parrish, Stacy Richardson, Sandy Rodriguez, Jay Snodgrass, Richard Toumey, George Tucker, Jennifer Welch, William Whitehurst, and I wrote indi- vidual lines. Rita Martinez took the lines and rearranged them into the final ver- sion of the poem. Stacy Richardson, the only undergraduate in our class, passed away in 2002. This poem is dedicated to her.

Fans of poetry and Breaking Bad know that Walt Whitman had a starring role.  Did anyone besides Ken pick up on Denise's cameo?

-- sdh

When Henry James Asked for Directions by Edith Wharton

Henry James and Edith Wharton often went "motoring" together.  Wharton wrote about one such trip in  A Motor-Flight Through France (1908).  Here, she describes an experience with James while traveling in England: 

 From A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton

The most absurd of these episodes occurred on another rainy evening when James and I chanced to arrive at Windsor long after dark. […] While I was hesitating and peering out into the darkness James spied an ancient doddering man who had stopped in the rain to gaze at us. ‘Wait a moment, my dear—I’ll ask him where we are’; and leaning out he signalled to the spectator.

‘My good man, if you’ll be good enough to come here, please; a little nearer—so,’ and as the old man came up: ‘My friend, to put it to you in two words, this lady and I have just arrived here from Slough; that is to say, to be more strictly accurate, we have recently passed through Slough on our way here, having actually motored to Windsor from Rye, which was our point of departure; and the darkness having overtaken us, we should be much obliged if you would tell us where we now are in relation, say, to the High Street, which, as you of course know, leads to the Castle, after leaving on the left hand the turn down to the railway station.’

I was not surprised to have this extraordinary appeal met by silence, and a dazed expression on the old wrinkled face at the window; nor to have James go on: ‘In short’ (his invariable prelude to a fresh series of explanatory ramifications), ‘in short, my good man, what I want to put to you in a word is this: supposing we have already (as I have reason to think we have) driven past the turn down to the railway station (which in that case, by the way, would probably not have been on our left hand, but on our right) where are we now in relation to…’

‘Oh, please,’ I interrupted, feeling myself utterly unable to sit through another parenthesis, ‘do ask him where the King’s Road is.’

‘Ah—? The King’s Road? Just so! Quite right! Can you, as a matter of fact, my good man, tell us where, in relation to our present position, the King’s Road exactly is?’

‘Ye’re in it’, said the aged face at the window.

-- sdh

Big blowsy blue hydrangeas setting off the orange trumpets of a campsis . . . Julia Fogg's terrain

It's a grey rainy day here in Ithaca and after the heat, I can't say that I'm too sorry.  Still, it was nice to open today's post from terrain, a blog I've been following for a couple of years.  I don't know much about blogger Julia Fogg other than that she's a UK landscape designer who travels widely and takes stunning photographs.  She concludes most of her posts with a poem.  Take a look:

continue reading here.

-- sdh

Quote of the Day: Octavio Paz

“The melting pot is a social idea that, when applied to culinary art, produces abominations.”

Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf Muffin via Chow

Discuss.

-- sdh

 

More on Cooking and Writing

Leslie McGrath's recent post about the similarities between writing and cooking reminded me of this passage, by Charles Simic:

If not in bed, my next writing-place of choice is the kitchen, with its smells of cooking. Some hearty soup or a stew simmering on the stove is all I need to get inspired. At such moments, I‘m reminded how much writing poetry resembles the art of cooking. Out of the simplest and often the most seemingly incompatible ingredients and spices, using either tried-and-true recipes, or concocting something at the spur of the moment, one turns out forgettable or memorable dishes. All that’s left for the poet to do is garnish his poems with a little parsley and serve them to poetry gourmets.

-- Charles Simic, New York Review of Books, February 10, 2012

-- sdh

Phil Jackson: Where was he in 1984? by Stacey Harwood

Reading Catherine Woodard's post last week about NBA coach Phil Jackson reminded me that way back in the mid-1980s Jackson coached the Continental Basketball Association Albany (NY) Patroons. The Patroons' home arena was the 3,500-seat Washington Avenue Armory, a former New York National Guard center with a forbidding castle-like exterior. Jackson won his first championship ring when he guided the Albany Patroons to the 1984 CBA championship. Walter (Walt The Stalt) Williams was named MVP of the series and went on to become a key assistant coach to Jackson.

I lived a short block away from the Armory and with my girlfriends regularly attended Patroons home games.  The mid-week games rarely sold out and we were able to get great seats near the floor.  Phil Jackson no longer had the unruly hair and beard of his Knicks days but he was easily recognizable by the way he paced along the sidelines, hands on hips, shoulders back.  It was sometimes more fun to watch him than the action on the court.

Those were the days!

 

Phil Jackson coached the Albany Patroons for four and half years in the mid-1980s, leading the team to the 1984 CBA title. This undated photo was taken at the Washington Avenue Armory. (ALBANY TIMES UNION)

-- sdh

Thinking of PVT Huy Robert Horowitz on the Anniversary of D-Day (June 6, 1944)

My father landed on Omaha Beach and went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.  Here he is in boot camp.

-- sdh

Stacey's personality test

(1) It is 2012. You follow your boss at a sales conference. Throughout her presentation – on marketing a new DVD of Oliver Stone’s JFK – she makes wildly erroneous statements, e.g. that Gerald Ford was JFK’s vice-president and that Ford escalated the war in Iraq. When it's your turn to talk,

a. You make no reference to your boss’s flubs.
b. You say she is famous for her dry, deadpan humor.
c. You take a chance and say “see what I have to put up with?”
d. Same as c. but you say it in French.
e. You deftly change the subject by talking about Henry Ford and the problems Detroit is having competing with Japan and how ironic that is, etc.

(2) As you rush down the subway steps and onto the downtown platform, you are pushed by a woman, who fights her way onto the R train while you struggle to maintain your balance. Then as her train pulls out you notice she has dropped a cute little leather purse with five twenties folded inside. You
a. Don’t think twice, it’s all right.
b. Try to find the woman to return her purse and show her what a superior human being you are.
c. Regard the money as insult added to injury, utter a delicate profanity about the bitch, then dump the cash on a bottle of vintage champagne.
d. Imagine the woman as the protagonist of your new novel.
e. Look around in a world-weary way as if you were the protagonist of a black-and-white 1940s British movie like Brief Encounter.

Now and Then: Things to do in NYC April 16-21

Saturday April 21, 2012, 3:30-5:30 PM:  Poetry & Cocktails  To celebrate National you-know-what (hint: April), the acclaimed East Village restaurant Back 40 is once again hosting a poetry/cocktail slam, for which it has enlisted some of New York's most inventive chemists to create cocktails inspired by their favorite poetry.  The great slam impresario, poet Bob Holman will raise each glass and conjure the poem that inspired its contents. We were there last year, we'll be there this year.  For God's sake--hock and soda water!

For more information and to purchase tickets go here.

-- sdh

Thanks for the memories, Chicago by Stacey Harwood

(l to r: Stephanie Brown, Emma Trelles, Stacey Harwood, Laura Orem. Photo by Ming Holden)

I just returned from the AWP conference in Chicago, where I participated in a panel discussion about this blog.  It was great to see so many friendly and familiar faces in the audience and to meet and talk to others later.  I certain came away with some great ideas and the energy to put them into practice.

We did a bit of reminiscing about favorite posts from the past four years. Even if you couldn't be there, you can have a taste of some of those that live on: 

Is This Thing On? Can You Hear Me Now? by James Cummins (February 7, 2008)

Trochaic Theory Picks Obama by David Lehman (August 6, 2008)

Stuff, or "Clean up your room!" by Laura Orem (October 7, 2008)

Dogs and Poetry, by Richard Garcia (July 22, 2009)

Kouman Sa Ta Ye by Emma Trelles (January 23, 2010)

Sex in the Stacks: Porn and the Librarian by Stephanie Brown (May 20, 2010)

Caution:  I've found that one post leads to another and before you know it, it's tomorrow. 

Do you have any favorites?  Let us know!

-- sdh