The Best American Poetry

On Hitchcock's Birthday [August 13]: His Cameo in "Marnie" [by David Lehman]

From Marnie (1964; screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, based on a novel by Winston Graham) is the second most Freudian of Hitchcock's movies, two quotes:

Marnie: "Men! You say 'no' to one of them, and bingo! you're a candidate for the funny farm."

*

Mark Rutland, to Marnie, re Mr. Strutt, the man who has threatened to blackmail her: "He's a businessman. That means he's in business to do business."  
"So?"
"So we try to do business with him." 

*

Quiz question: where does Hitchcock make his cameo in Marnie?

a) leaving one hotel room as Tippi Hedren enters another
b) walking across an elevated pedestrian bridge between two buildings
c) in New York, with a bus door slammed in his face
d) in a newspaper ad for a weight-reduction program
e) in the room where the pianist keeps playing the same theme

*

Happy birthday to the "master of suspense," who observed astutely that "Drama is life with the dull bits cut out," a statement that justifies tagging this post under not only "Hitchcock quiz" but also "spontaneous aphorisms." When August 13 lands on a Friday, watch out --  a drunken poet may phone you at midnight while a couple of bats sneak in through the bathroom window.

-- DL

"Jeweat?" Tips from Ethel Cotton's 1960 Course in Conversation [by Stacey Lehman]

A few years ago at the Tompkins County Friends of the Library sale I picked up a complete Ethel Cotton 1960 Course in Conversation comprising twelve lessons that promise to turn a shy wall flower into a master of repartee. Here's a tip for today: 

More on #5:

"I'll Never Smile Again" (Sinatra, the Pied Pipers & the Tommy Dorsey band in 1940)

Here is how Tommy's sweet trombone mixed with amazing voice of the skinny kid from Hoboken. DL

 

Reflections on Ireland [by Charles Coe]

I was in Dingle, Ireland recently to teach poetry in an American MFA program abroad. Some of my workshop sessions were held at An Diseart, an Irish spiritual and cultural center that shares the grounds with St. Mary’s Church. On those grounds is a tiny cemetery  where lie the nuns who over the centuries have run the church convent.

Flying back to Boston, thirty-five-thousand feet over the Atlantic with two weeks in Ireland behind me, my thoughts kept drifting back to that cemetery, and to the time when the Catholic Church ruled the country with an iron hand. Church dogma dominated civic life; no Catholic politician would consider any action without knowing “his” (the Cardinal's) thoughts on the matter and making sure he approved.

But modern Ireland has broken those shackles: In 1985 it legalized birth control. In 1995 it revoked the constitutional prohibition against divorce. In 2015 it became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage through a popular vote.

And then the most remarkable development of all: in June, Ireland elected Leo Varadkaran, an openly gay man with an Indian immigrant father and Irish mother, as “taoiseach” (prime minister). Later that month Mr. Varadkaran proudly led Dublin’s gay pride parade.

Today’s Ireland is one the Sisters of St. Mary’s of olden days would neither recognize nor condone. The world in which those women lived symbolizes the profound contradictions of Irish history—the mix of beauty and ugliness, the capacity for both gentle lyricism and stone-hearted cruelty. They spent their days in quiet contemplation, surrounded by the serene beauty of the green hills, floating like black-clad ghosts through the church corridors, secure in the rightness and beauty of their vocations.

But they were complicit in a system of rigid patriarchy and repressive moralism in which sexual abuse was endemic, physical violence against children was standard disciplinary practice and unwed mothers were virtually imprisoned to provide slave labor for the Church. It was a system whose deep wounds to the country's psyche are only beginning to heal.

The idea of modern Ireland, a country that could turn away from the Church’s “guidance,” would have been inconceivable to the Good Sisters of St. Mary’s. Inconceivable to those women for whom the Bishop’s word was the unquestioned word of God. Women, souls committed to their vision of Christ, whose mortal remains now lie shaded beneath the oaks…

 

Poet and writer Charles Coe is author of two books of poetry: All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents and Picnic on the Moon, both published by Leapfrog Press. He is author of Spin Cycles, a novella published by Gemma Media. His essay Hill of Dreams, about his travels through the Soviet Union in 1988, appears in Inspired Journeys: Travels with the Muse (University of Wisconsin Press 2016). Peach Pie, a short film by filmmaker Roberto Mighty based on his poem Fortress, is currently showing in film festivals nationwide.

Charles is the winner of a fellowship in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He was selected by the Associates of the Boston Public Library as a “Boston Literary Light for 2014.” He in the second year of a three-year term as an Artist Fellow for the St. Botolph Club, an organization that supports arts and the humanities in Greater Boston. He has also been chosen as an Artist-in-Residence for the city of Boston for 2017.

 

"O, wearisome condition of humanity!" [by Fulke Greville -- and Aldous Huxley]

Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound:
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound:
What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws? 
Passion and reason, self-division cause.

    There is a special category of greatness for lines quoted by masters as epigraphs -- the way Poe used Sir Thomas Browne in "The Murders in the Re Morgue" or Eliot's borrowing from a major speech in Measure for Measure.

    The lines quoted above are by Fulke Greville, the Elizabethan poet, author of Mustapha and Caelica, and my candidate for the most underrated poet in English literature.

    Aldous Huxley quoted a variant of these lines from "Chorus Sacerdotum" as the epigraph for Point Counter Point:

Oh, wearisome conditions of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound,
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity:
Created sick, commanded to be sound.
What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws --- 
Passion and reason, self-division's cause?.

    `Leave aside critical questions of punctuation and capitalization, and the most significant change is the transformation  of the last word in the passage, "cause," from verb to noun.

    Point Counter Point is a substantial novel of ideas and talk about ideas, with a character based on DH Lawrence among other recognizable literati,  though it is possible to regard the epigraph as the single best thing about it just as a Sinatra song over the closing credits ("It's Nice to Go Traveling," for example) may upstage the terrorist skyjacking thriller that ends with it.

-- DL

"Frenesi" (Artie Shaw and Orchestra)

Artie Shaw went to Mexico for a vacation and came back with "Frenesi." Listen to that clarinet, now mellow, now a glissando smear. GIs in France after D=Day were taught to pronounce the French word for artichoke (artichaut) by saying the bandleader's name. -- DL

 

"Amapola" (vocals Helen O'Connell & Bob Eberly; Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra; 1941)

This is what you hear throughout Sergio Leone's movie masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America. The same one-two punch -- Eberly crooning, O'Connell jaunty and uptempo -- is also to be found in their great rendition of "Tangerine."  -- DL

 

Fragments 61-70 (from Selected Fragments) [by Alan Ziegler]

61. From my father’s log of 1940 cross-country trip: “Reno, Aug 17. Went out to take the town. P.S. the town took us!”

62. Come one, come all, buy my vacuum cleaner. Be a friend of nature, for if there’s one thing nature abhors more than a vacuum, it’s a dirty vacuum.

63. Statute of Limitations Calendar App for Criminals: Enter the crime, the state, and the date, and the app will alert you when you can stop sweating it.

64. Overheard: “I hate to sound like an essentialist since I’m in fact a Yale-trained deconstructionist.”

65. From my father’s log of 1940 cross-country trip: “Between Gilroy and Ballard, Aug 21. Stopped at a road-side stand and had a 14-inch Hot Dog.”

66. Sometimes I wish you would turn traitor and lead them to me so I could see you one last time.

67. I trip and scrape my knee. I smile as I remember crying as a little boy when I fell. I think of John Berryman’s line “I am not a little boy,” and a tear re-emerges.

68. On the Trocadero Plaza I think of Hitler in the same place, nodding smugly at the Eiffel Tower: “This is mine.” You Nazi son of a bitch it’s mine now.

69. What my grandmother said when she found out a relative’s husband was a bigamist: “But he held her, he kissed her, he looked her in the eyes.”

70. From my father’s log of 1940 cross-country trip: Washington, DC, Sept 6. Arrived with $.54. Put gal. of gas — .16. Balance .38. Went to Police station to try & get a loan of a couple of dollars. (Got S- - t.). Still hadn’t eaten anything so went to Salvation Army to try & get a meal. (Again, got S - - t.) At about 11:00 p.m. – bought some food: .38. Cash now on hand $.00 Went to sleep.

The Wisdom of Warren Buffett

"How do you become a millionaire? You start out as a billionaire and you buy an airline." -- Warren Buffett

Meet the Press: Dante Di Stefano in Conversation with Jessica Kristie of Winter Goose Publishing and William Stratton, Author of These Things Too Have Shape

DD: How did Winter Goose come into being? Can you give us a brief history of the press?

JK: In 2011 I started WGP from a desire to stay close to the written word as a writer and lover of art. The success of our press came quickly with an overwhelming amount of submissions and support from the writing community. We’ve now published over a hundred books and carry several award-winning authors and titles in our catalog.

DD: Tell us a little bit about your poetry catalog. What do Winter Goose books share in common?

JK: Our poetry catalog ranges in variety from traditional form poetry to a more extensive catalog of contemporary poetry and poets. Our poetry books are all laced with a genuine heart-felt journey through the eyes of many different perspectives. In that genuineness, we find a common thread for all our poetry catalog.

DD: What are you looking for in prospective authors?

JK: We are looking for unique and well-designed writing with a strong voice. We publish based on quality more than what the industry may consider marketable material. We appreciate the process of writing, whether fiction or poetry, and are always excited to find the next fresh and talented new voice.

DD: You’ve published two of Bill Stratton’s poetry collections. Can you tell us about what you most admire in his poetry?

JK: Bill brings a strong sense of self with his writing. He writes from a place that brings you in and keeps you there. It’s genuine, raw, and heartfelt. The power shines brightly through his words and gives him a solid foundation that we honor and appreciate.

DD:  You grew up in a rural area of upstate New York. Can you talk about how this upbringing influences your writing and how the natural world figures in your work?

WS: I don't know if I can say anything I haven't already tried to say in my poems, though what I've tried to say has filled a decent part of two books now, so perhaps I ought to try. Where I am from is central New York, more hills than mountains, more dead farms and dollar stores than mines or mills. It's beautiful and haunting, and within my life I saw the end of a certain way of life and the movement into another; from working on farms and local factories to an economy that never really sees the upswing when the country does well and feels every bit of pain when it does not. Drug addiction and violence have increased, as they have in a lot of places where poverty is a problem. Still, there are amazing people there whose friendship I value greatly and who often appear in my poems. I obviously have a lot of conflicting feelings about where I am from, but I'm also fiercely loyal—my friends from home know that, and to me, that is very important. Of course it's a rural place, and in particular I grew up on an old farm with several hundred acres to roam, and several thousand acres of state land on two sides. I spent a lot of time alone in the woods when I was a kid. My father subscribed in part to the idea that I should leave the house whenever I wanted or could (and sometimes when I did not) without a curfew or expectation on return. "He'll come back when he's hungry," I remember him telling my stepmother. As a result, there is little I do not know about those woods and fields. It is a tiny corner of the earth, and I am very aware of how sheltered I was in some ways, despite my fierce independence and oppositional defiance. Those years are formative, and for me, they helped to form a sense of self which maybe relies too much on itself to construct meaning; that is, I often had a hard time relying on others when I reached adolescence, because in my isolation I taught myself that I was all that I needed. Turns out, or so I think now, that's not always the best way to go about life. It taught me patience and that examining simple things at length and in detail can yield surprising results. It taught me that I am something small and fragile and mortal but also big and powerful and destructive. It taught me about consequence. I digress. The natural world is, in short, important to me not only as a writer, but as a person. I hope I do it some justice in my work. Since I believe, in some part, that writing is a process of pulling the internal (reflection, insight, observation, interpretation) and externalizing it as language, I recognize and do my best to work with the kind of internal abilities the natural world endowed me with. I have learned to listen for the voice I recognize as my own, and it is often easiest to see in the natural world. I hope that answers the question.

DD: In These Things Too Have Shape you have poems about being stabbed and being punched in the face. Different forms of violence punctuate the otherwise gentle forward movement of this collection. Could you discuss the role of violence in your work?

WS: This is an important topic for me, and one I think writers ought to speak to more often. I would like to think myself a non-violent person. I would like to think that I no longer need violence in my life, either as way for conflict resolution or as a means of self-discovery, both of which have been a part of my past. I do my best to work through anger and violence internally now, recognizing them for what they are: destructive and unnecessary, and usually ineffective. That said, if I ignore the role that violence has played in forming the person that I am, or if I dismiss the part is has played in the world I grew up in, I am lying to my readers and worse, to myself. The world is sometimes a violent place, and it does no good to pretend otherwise. I say this not to advocate for violence, but to advocate confronting it, to advocate for resolving root problems that lead to violence, to advocate for self-reflection. Often people pretend they are not capable of violence—that’s the worst kind of fallacy. I believe we ought to admit to ourselves, each of us, that we are capable of being violent creatures, hurting and even killing, because I believe it is only with this admission that we can even attempt to solve violence as an epidemic worldwide, and within our own homes. In addition to this, I think poetry and writing in general has its roots in violence. Some of our oldest recorded writings for instance, are incredibly violent. We don't teach Beowulf or Gilgamesh to glorify violence. But to pretend that those works are not riddled with violence is silly. For me, a careful examination of what that violence is, how it operates for the characters and for the narratives, why it exists and what it measures...those are important questions, which I think we might overlook at times. So yes, my poems on occasion record violence, but they are non-fictional instances of violence (as far as my memory operates) and they serve an important function not only for the book, but for me. I would very much like to think that what readers I have are able to engage that violence on several levels, and that their reactions are both visceral and honest.

DD: You begin the collection with my favorite poem, “Milkweed,” which seems really to be an Ars Poetica. In this poem, you write that the burst remains of a milkweed pod are your Paris. What is your personal definition of poetry?

WS: Oh dear. I guess I might say: Poetry is that which, if I attempt to define it, I will sound pompous and moronic at the same time. Milkweed is as close as I can get to a definition, and hopefully I sound neither, but odds are good that someone out there think I sound one or the other or both fairly consistently.  I think, ultimately, whatever my definition is, it's not completely static, and hopefully you can get a feel for it by reading my poems, which I would vastly prefer to attempting to distill it in a definition here.

DD: What is the most encouraging development you’ve witnessed in contemporary poetry?

WS: I don't think I read nearly enough contemporary poetry to be any sort of judge. I don't really read enough contemporary poetry, period. I do my best, but there’s so much of it out there, I rarely feel like I'm doing even a passable job. At the risk of sounding completely self-centered, I do read every journal that publishes my work cover-to-cover, and I've found some amazing poems, poets, and friends that way. I suppose I see a trend towards narrative poetry slowly gaining ground on lyric poetry. I recently had a discussion with an editor and poet friend of mine about the types of poetry he sees for submissions. He explained to me about Hoagland's essay and the skittery poet (which I then had to find and read), and I have to say I agree, though again my experience is limited. Personally, my aesthetics run less associative and “experimental” (though that term irks me), but I recognize that those poems have value outside of my taste preferences. I've always thought poetry might want to consider allowing accessibility to be a word which, instead of gathering scorn, might have value. I have had a poet nearly take a swing at me for the very idea that poetry should be able to be 'accessible' if it so chooses. So, I would like to think that poetry today is, increasingly, large enough to accommodate all types of poems and all types of audiences. I certainly think it can be, and while I don't buy a lot of books that don't fit my aesthetic, I am honored to be published in the same journals as those that differ, and I would very much like to live in a world where both can exist peacefully, as it were. 

DD: If you could only read and say and remember one poem (written by someone else) for the rest of your life, what poem would it be?

WS: Ha! Prufrock maybe? I'm terrible at memorizing poems, it’s embarrassing. Prufrock was the first poem though, that made me think: "Shit. I wish I had written that." and really feel it.

DD: We both attended Binghamton University as undergraduates at the same time, in the late 90s and early 00s. I was lucky enough to be in Liz Rosenberg’s poetry workshop and Michael Klein’s creative nonfiction workshop with you. How did Binghamton University influence your development as a writer?

WS: Looking back on my life as a writer, I have been so fortunate. Not only to be in those classes with you (and several other talented, amazing people), but also to have the teachers I have had. From a very young age I was lucky enough to have one or two who would challenge me, push me, allow me to invest myself in learning and education and writing. Liz, Michael, Ruth Stone, David Chirico and others at Binghamton, a couple of very good high school English teachers, even a teacher who had me in a gifted and talented program in elementary school. As I write this, I am recovering from the loss of one of my great mentors in writing, Tom Lux. Along with Stuart Dischell and a few others at the Sarah Lawrence summer program for adult writers, he helped me to discover that writing was, actually, a thing I could not live without. I have met and worked with some amazing writers over the years, many of whom are also amazing people. David Rivard and Mekeel Mcbride helped guide me through my graduate program, and I was lucky enough to Charlie Simic as my thesis advisor. I was able to spend a day with Phil Levine less than a year before he passed, and we spent a few hours talking about poetry and writing and poverty and how we both felt a sense of responsibility to the people and places that raised us.  I have so many wonderful moments with so many wonderful writers, and they just keep coming. Lately I have been lucky enough to be accepted into a group of talented writers in Burlington and I am lucky enough to say that Major Jackson now reads my poems every week, for example. Not all of my encounters with poets and writers have been positive ones, and certainly I have met some writers which, for one reason or another don't seem interested in engaging with me. But overall, I have been blindingly fortunate. It is my great desire to be able to give back to poetry and writing and young poets and writers what has been given to me.

I'm not sure I can specifically say exactly what Binghamton did for me as a writer, the time now seems to all blend together.  I'm not sure I can quantify my time there in a satisfactory way. I suppose it will have to suffice for me to say: It influenced me greatly, and I would not be the writer I am today without it.

DD: I’d like to end with your poem, “Harness,” which appeared in a recent issue of Field. Could you introduce us to this poem?

WS: “Harness,” like the vast majority of my poems, is in large part non fictional and narrative. My father really did drive a team of draft horses, they really did take off with me on their backs, and I really was found some time later in an old apple orchard/pasture. To me, that's important, though I've heard from others that the distinction holds less meaning for a reader, and I have only their feedback to go on. When I became a father, my perspective and thoughts on my childhood started to shift. In particular, one day, I remembered this story, told to me many times by many family members. I was too young to really recall the incident, though I remembered instantly the smell of the horses and how the world looked from their backs. When I started to process the memory through the experience of a father, I nearly had a panic attack. I have no idea what I would do if my daughter disappeared up and over a hill on the back of a massive spooked horse. Chase them, I suppose. As for the ending, I think what was most telling about my memory was that I did not remember specifically that event, though I remember many others and I remember generally things about the horses. To me, that indicates that the event, while terrible and traumatic for the adults in my family, wasn't for me. I thought about that a long time, and the story of what passed between Angel and I came to me slowly, in the way things sometimes do when they have truth without adhering strictly to fact.  I often write instinctively, doing my best to lose myself in the process, listening more than speaking (the exact opposite of how I revise). In Harness, I think I was somewhat successful in tapping into my own voice, and finding a way to translate a real event of my life into the fantastic we sometimes need to connect experience to the universal.  I'm not great at talking about my poems, or at least, I aspire to be much better than I am. I hope that suffices.

            Harness

            They tell me I was too young to remember
            the day the horse team spooked and broke
            the reins and left my father empty-handed,
            running after them with me on their backs.
            I rode every time he took them out, Marsha
            one was called and Angel the other and I was
            too young (maybe four) to be up on their
            broad backs, without a saddle, but they were
            so calm not even a shotgun made them bolt
            and my father was so young and proud
            not even his son could scare him. I was
            never scared, their black manes smelled
            so good and the rise and fall of their shoulders
            as I lay on my stomach pulled the horizon
            up and down and I kept the flies from their face
            with a long branch. Now that I am a father
            and my father is dead I think he must have
            felt, in the moment the reins left his hands
            and the trace snapped, that all of what his life
            had led to up to at that point was now in full
            flight from him, his hands never so empty
            as right then and it was a beautiful day
            to lose a son. I was lost for only an hour
            they tell me, but I know the truth: the horses
            and I ran to the thickest part of the old
            orchard and there I passed into Angel
            and Marsha watched as Angel passed
            into me and that is why still today on spring
            days in the sun when the people are all
            very happy to have the warmth I am remembering
            a collar and the feel of a boy on my back
            and the taste of wild apples sour and sweet.

Jessica Kristie is an award winning author, social entrepreneur, and a lover of poetry. She is an advocate for art, an activist against human trafficking, and a soulful contributor to the strengthening of our creative communities. Her novel, Barbed-Wire Butterflies, donates 100% of all print royalties and a percentage of digital copies and merchandise to fight human trafficking. Look for her poetry collections, Dreaming in Darkness, Threads of Life, and Winter Dress, as well as her eBook offering to creators, Weekly Inspirations for Writers & Creators. You can find her fusion of poetry and music with the collaboration, Kristie & Cloverfield, released through Ultrasonic Music Germany, and available everywhere. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jessica Kristie discovered her passion for writing as a child. Along with her creative side, she works in the publishing industry, is an avid supporter of all creative souls, and hopes to draw readers into her world through shared emotion. She inspires to forgive, remember, and heal, while continuing to dedicate herself to fighting social injustices.

William Stratton currently lives in Colchester, Vermont. He teaches writing and poetry at SUNY Plasttsburgh, and is associate poetry editor at the Saranac Review. His first full length collection of poetry, Under The Water Was Stone (Winter Goose Publishing, 2014) has been nominated for the Kate Tufts Discovery award and the Eugene Paul Nassar Award. His second book These Things Too Have Shape was released in January of 2016. His poetry is published or forthcoming in: FIELD, Sugar House Review, Spillway, The Cortland Review, Best of Pif Magazine, The North American Review, Connotation Press, Canary, and others.

 

Dante Di Stefano is the author of Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight (Brighthorse Books, 2016). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Brilliant Corners, The Los Angeles Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He is a poetry editor for the DIALOGIST. Along with María Isabel Alvarez, he is the co-editor of Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump's America, forthcoming from NYQ Books.

Between the Acts [by James Agee]

Virginia Woolf was the unlikeliest artist on earth to stoop to propaganda, or to any form of public ingratiation. She did not do so here. Yet England and its people, its present, past, innocence and disease, are here summarized in much the way a night wind can summarize a continent.

Forgiveness is a Dish Best Served (Naked) [by Sean Speers]

Sure as she’s a Catholic she’s sure
of herself. I’m sure my life is
fraying like shoestrings minus aglet except you

wear shoes that slide or buckle. There’s nothing
I’m sure I wouldn’t do. Sure, you’re beautiful,
but that’s not it. Isn’t it? Your guilt runs over

There’s enough to cobble gods with
plenty left over for a hair shirt or two. Lie
down in green plaid skirts; draw a bath

of still water. Then forgive me—do you
have that power? If I could ever forgive myself
I wouldn’t.

"Catullus #50 Meets Godard’s Contempt" [by Angela Brommel]

Youth positions a girl like Bardot
ass up, questioning if truly he loves
all of her.  At twenty-two this charm
captivates his wit.

She squeals through wine by the case.
On her back he traces, an alternating game
of brush and linger until the plaster falls
from the ceiling below.

She is feral beneath so much cotton.
Moonlight.  If day light was near      
with a chance just to speak with him.

Food ceases to taste good alone. 
There is no solace in sleeping alone.

There is a deadness that rises as she reclines
on the sofa to write a poem for him.
There is a joy in suffering so deeply.

-- Angela Brommel

Jo Stafford and "Too Marvelous for Words"

It's Jo Stafford's sublime version you hear in "Dark Passage" (1947) with Bogart and Bacall. "Bogart: "you like swing?" Bacall: "yes, legitimate swing." Richard Whiting (Margaret's papa) wrote the music and Johnny Mercer the words of this  all-time great love song

 

Tales of the Seventies: The Children’s Ward at the Vermont State Hospital (1970); [by Alan Ziegler]

    We arrive at connected brick buildings in a clearing surrounded by Vermont; inside, khaki walls, urine, and sobs. We are told, “Students tend to be overly idealistic but this place isn’t bad for a mental institution. Try not to let it get to you and you’ll learn some things books can’t tell you.” I am only visiting with volunteers; they will all leave in a few weeks and I will leave even sooner.

    I focus on Michael, who talks of Beatles, Stones, and Mets. I am told, “Michael won’t let you touch him, very erratic. He’s fourteen, been here since he shot his big brother six years ago. Under sedation he’s not too bad.”

    I bring my guitar and he says, “Are you the Beatles can you wear your shoes like Mick Jagger is that Steppenwolf’s shirt?” I say no and he punches me in the nose, smiling at the drops of blood he has created. I am told, “Soon he’ll be transferred to the adult ward and that’s usually the kiss of death. His mother is dead and the father hardly visits, says he can’t cope with him.”

    In front of everyone, Michael says to me, “Hey lemme see your pecker, is it big?” then cackles at my silence. He reaches for my guitar and I hand it to him, not wanting to set him off but also sensing that this is something he can touch for real. He strums, a-chordal but rhythmic, then sings in shrieks. He is me but less shy.

    Michael shows me his secret treasures: Shea Stadium grass, John Lennon’s guitar pick, and the key to the laundry room (“Don’t tell!”). We hear someone approaching and Michael closes his hand tightly around his treasures.

    I am told, “You’re getting too involved with Michael. I understand it’s tempting to try to save one patient, but you’ll have to handle all kinds.”

    Michael takes me to the laundry room, opens the lock, locks the door, opens the lock. He asks me if I have ever seen the Mets play. I tell him I have, and he asks, “Do they sing, too?”

    On my last day, we walk though dark halls and tunnels until under sunshine for our walk. Michael stops, makes his arms into a funnel and reaches up to me. I bend and he runs, laughing in circles around me, howling, throwing punches at the air. I want to pump him full of locked rooms.

“Says Who? Says Tina” [by Michael Malinowitz]

When Lizzie T. married her Mr. Todd did she think his eye odd?
Oops I’ve got the wrong movie,
the different team and I’m a few extra years
off.  Dear boys, can you ever and ever forgive you.
A couple of average Joes; let’s call them Dave and Jim
seemed to know their baseball
and wrote that Hank and Jesus were baseball
players who hit in odd
positions in their lineups and on their bats in a book borrowed from Jim.
The progress in a horror movie;
various ring tones, well you
just can’t stop it or the years
as they march into lost and found years.
Some say it could be a metaphor for baseball.
I took many things as signs to miss you:
The 3:57 six minutes late, the 4:03 on time.  It was odd.
Yet I was on board the movie.
I should have looked up Jim
25 years ago, a homonym for gym.
All the songs equate and divide the years.
Her words were dubbed into his lines in the movie.
Darragh said he’s off baseball;
his dilemma was convincing or odd,
not though compared to you
and yours and what we knew about you.
Lou, my roommate was called Jim
by everyone but me.  I’m afraid of the water how odd
considering I’m a Pisces. Years
ago I fell in.  When my sister took me to a movie
she would threaten to throw me off the balcony.  So I watched baseball
instead of, instead of the baseball
that was preferred by the likes of you.
If I go I prefer to see a movie
alone, or perhaps with Jim
who I still don’t know after all these wonderful years.
Think of it shy, embarrassing, but not odd.
They used the familiar you in a recent movie that took years
to complete.  It starred Jim rubbing up a baseball.  Now that’s odd.

-- Michael Malinowitz

Sinatra and Louis Armstrong: "The Birth of the Blues"

 

 

Sus Utcunque Evanescens [by Laura Orem]

AWP began over 20 years ago to help professionalize the MFA as a terminal degree so that writers working in academia would be eligible for tenure. The logic was that teachers with the MFA could go back to their institutions and be as eligible for a tenured position in writing and literature as any PhD. As we all know, it hasn't worked out that way. What none of us – AWP included – anticipated was the slide of academia into business model it now embraces, which undermines tenure and relies heavily on poorly paid contingent (part- and full-time) faculty. There is a dearth of positions and an abundance of writers seeking positions. In other words, to quote Abraham Lincoln when asked about being besieged by eager office seekers, "there's too many pigs for the tits" – and in fact that mama pig has vanished into thin air.  More accurately, she has been slaughtered by administrators, CEOs, and an industry that views students as customers rather than the product – and therefore its faculty not as colleagues in a larger mission, but as worker bees. Other than a handful of prestigious chairs or professorships for big-name writers, tenure-track positions for poets teaching in the land of Composition and Intro to Literature where most of us reside are so scarce as to be virtually non-existent. We need to rethink the purpose of the MFA if we want it to survive – and if we want to make a living.

How many poets do you know who hold tenured or tenure-track teaching positions? There are some – and God bless them, too. (Believe me, I'm not envious – I just marvel that they were able to do it.) Now, how many poets do you know who are existing on the verge of poverty while doing the Adjunct Shuffle over several schools, counting coupons and praying they will have a job next semester? I bet it's a lot more. I'll even bet it's you.

It's easy to understand the attractiveness of the teaching life. I taught for almost 20 years, and for most of the time, I loved it. For one thing, it's deeply important work. If you are lucky, now and again you get one of those students who you know is going to change the world – and you get to be justly proud you might have had a hand in that. You get to talk about the thing you love most – words and language – with colleagues who understand its importance. There are lots of exciting things going on around you – student productions, guest speakers, art installations, gatherings. You get to be self-directed (it's your classroom) and you get chunks of time off between semesters. And, most wondrous of all, you have unfettered access to that bastion of civilization: the academic library. The goodies that still exist are indeed good.

Only…you don't get paid remotely enough. In fact, you get paid wages so low that colleges have become the intellectual sweatshops of the Western world, particularly in the humanities. Academia is frequently cited by unions and labor advocates as one of the worst offenders in abuse of the gig economy. Contingent faculty have no job security. Your classes are often over-enrolled; you likely don't get benefits; you are expected to have office hours even if you don't have any office space; you probably don't get a vote in faculty meetings (in fact, you may not even be on the email list for faculty meetings). The institution indicates how little you matter by paying you less per hour than a barista at Starbucks and by subtly and not-so-subtly letting you know that, should you jump ship, there are plenty more where you came from. As for your writing, it only exists for the institution insofar as it can bring in publicity, prestige and more students. Poetry thrives on campuses in spite of the institution, not because of it. The sad reality is, despite its lip service to the lofty goals of higher education, academia today treats teachers like a 1910s shirtwaist factory boss treated his sewing machine girls.

We need to ask ourselves how academia has sustained this teaching model for so long. It's simple: By dangling the carrot of "maybe" – maybe next year, maybe when so-and-so retires, maybe we'll take it up with the Board, maybe, maybe, maybe. We want it so badly to be real that we willingly subject ourselves to a predatory and exploitative working environment in the hope that tomorrow things will be better.

Poets (and other writers), we need to stop this. Remember that old cliché about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome? Yeah, that. This is of course not to say everyone should instantly stop teaching. But understand what's going on. It's time to stop waiting for the invisible pig to reappear. Like Godot, she's not coming.

But…but…how? What else is a poetry degree good for?  Lots of things, bunky. The MFA can be leveraged in many ways – editing, publishing, marketing, content writing, and so on. Despite received wisdom, humanities degrees show employers that applicants have a broad range of knowledge and critical thinking skills. Or you don't have to leverage it all. Go work in a field you like that doesn't care about your MFA.  Go be a doctor, a lawyer, an insurance salesman, a baker, a candlestick maker, an office manager, a dentist, an engineer, an HVAC installer, a farm hand, a fighter pilot, a web designer, or a barista at Starbucks, where not only will you be better paid, you'll get free coffee. Look, all jobs are annoying at some level. That's why it's called work. Be creative. The one thing poets are is creative.

But if I don’t teach, how will I have time to write? Well, get off Facebook, for starters. Another thing to think of is how much time and intellectual energy is spent grading papers, planning classes, meeting with students, and worrying if you're going to be able to pay the electric bill. Teaching's "time off" lure is largely illusion, especially if you are scrambling to pay bills over the summer break. Lucille Clifton wrote her first books as a stay-at-home mom while raising six stair-step babies. Wallace Stevens sold insurance. William Carlos Williams was a doctor, and Rafael Campo is one right now. Dana Gioa worked in advertising, and Bob Hicok owned his own auto die design business. Poets writing now run non-profits, practice as psychologists, and build fine furniture. You want to write, you'll figure it out.  And it's easier to figure out if the utilities haven't been cut off.

Then why get an expensive MFA at all? Because a good MFA program isn't really about teaching credentials anymore – it's about learning your craft and finding your beloved community. We live in a world which is happy to tell you every day that what you do doesn't matter. The MFA begs to differ. Can you get by as a writer without one? Of course you can. Does getting an MFA enrich your writing life?  A good one does.  In fact, the MFA program is probably the one place in academia where the mission of good writing and decent pay for faculty still exists. (The irony is that academic institutions love MFA programs, especially low-residency MFA programs, because they bring in significant money with low overhead in the form of student housing and other services, and a lot of publicity and prestige for the school.)

If you want an MFA, you must move beyond thinking that it's going to make one whit of difference to your chances of getting a good teaching job. Because it isn't, any more than it's going to help you move up in line for astronaut training. This isn't AWP's fault or the MFA program's fault. The playing field has been seismically shifted. We have to shift, too, to move into thinking more broadly about what other things the degree can give us. As for me, getting my MFA at Bennington was the most important thing I ever did. When I went there, I felt like I finally got to put my Batman suit on after a lifetime of walking around as Bruce Wayne. It made me part of a history and community of writers. And yes, it was expensive. In fact, it took me eighteen years to pay off my loans. But it took so long because I was making bupkis at teaching. To make ends meet, I taught here, I taught there, I taught everywhere at once (my record was eight writing classes in one semester). Even after years of adjuncting when I finally had a full-time (but still contingent) position, composition was still languishing at the bottom of the salary scale. If I had had a job that paid appropriately, I would have paid my loans off a lot sooner. But I was committed to the idea that my MFA meant I was supposed to be a teacher, no matter what. So for almost twenty years, I scrambled for those breadcrumbs.

It's time to change the paradigm. We as poets (and other writers) will have to change it, because why should academia? Tuition costs have risen astronomically while faculty salaries have stagnated; colleges are raking it in on the backs of its faculty. So as for me, even though I loved teaching, I will not teach in a college composition department again. For one thing, I can't afford it. For another, I refuse to participate any longer in a system that thrives on exploiting most of its workers. In reality, academia as a contemporary institution doesn't care about your art or your teaching. It only cares about the bottom line.

And I leave you with this: the average cost of an MFA in creative writing today is around $30,000. A 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee starts at $30,595. That's stripped, with no bells and whistles – and as soon as you drive it off the lot, its value drops exponentially. You'll also have to trade it in again some day and get a new one.  Just sayin'.

Fragments 50-60 (from Selected Fragments) [by Alan Ziegler]

 

50. Part of me grew up the day Superman blew his brains out.

51. Bowling: Quantity not quality.

52. A wooden wagon propelled by the light of the moon.

53. Inside each of us is a skeleton waiting its turn.

54. Tracking you sometimes I see my own footprints.

55. The mind feeding off the carrion in the heart.

56. Hope springs internal.

57: Incident on the highway: There’s one less tarantula in the Nevada desert.

58: Double positive can equal a negative: “I will always love you forever.”

59: The sadness of the empty dish after the unsatisfying meal.

60: Told to me in a dream: "Because we matter too much in this world."