The Best American Poetry

Squibs 309—312 [by Alan Ziegler]

309: I have an appointment with my room. But my room doesn’t show. I wait and wait but there’s nowhere to sit, nothing to read. My legs grow weary, so I go home. And there’s my room, looking very cross.

310: Edward didn’t sound like anyone else in the high school. He called boys Mr., sing-songing the first syllables of mister and the last name: Mister Ziegler. He was large but timid, especially afraid of electrical wires. A teacher told us his “brain was different.” The rude kids called him names referring to his mental development, but most of us were extra nice.

         He could tell on what day of the week any date in the past or future would fall, which he was constantly asked to do, though I don’t recall anyone verifying—or knowing how to verify—his answer. He played trombone in the school band without looking at the music, and during rehearsals he would occasionally step up to the podium and conduct, to the cheers of his bandmates. He did it once during a concert, and got a standing ovation.

         Someone had chalked a home plate on the back wall of the Water Company—across the empty lot behind my house—creating a makeshift stickball field. Off to the side was a small conglomeration of machinery surrounded by a chain-link fence with a sign warning of electrical danger. One Saturday, as I was mowing the backyard, I saw a couple of the rude boys hanging out with Edward, throwing a ball around, always over Edward’s head. I couldn’t hear what they were shouting, but I could guess. Edward was laughing, so I turned away. Then, a horrified, horrifying howl. The boys had tied one of Edward’s hands to the chain-link fence. He repeatedly screamed, “No, No!” followed by each boy’s name preceded by “Mister.” I knew Edward wasn’t in danger but he didn’t.

         I went into the house. When I next saw Edward in school he said, “Mister Ziegler,” and I asked him on what day my birthday would fall in fifty years.

         Half a century later, what haunts me is not that I didn’t do anything to stop Edward’s pain, but that it didn’t even occur to me there was anything I could do.

         I choose to remember that Edward immediately answered, “Wednesday.”

311: Early in my relationship with Erin, during our first full evening with her parents, Paul and Esther, I had a trick up my sleeve: a card trick I learned from a pre-famous Penn & Teller VHS tape. The purpose of part one of the trick is to fail. A modest amount of skill is required to force the Three of Clubs on the subject, then, following improvised card trick maneuvers, you triumphantly pick, say, the Ten of Diamonds from the deck and declare with brimming pride: “Is…that…your card?!” To which your subject either consoles you or gloats at your failure. You explain that you’ll work on it for next time and go on with your evening. Later, you turn on the T.V. and there’s Penn Jillette from the VHS tape playing a local news anchor. After a few minutes, lo and behold as if by wizardry, the newscaster flashes the Three of Clubs and says , “Is…that…your card?!”

         I imagined this would result in befuddlement followed by applause, but we never got that far. When I sprang the Ten of Diamonds on Esther and said, “Is…that…your card?!” she stood up, applauded, and replied with a resounding “YES!”

312: Artists should not be compelled to “stay in your lane.” Artists should, as the speaker of Robert Creely’s “I Know a Man” suggests, “buy a goddamn big car, / drive…” But always heed Creely’s speaker’s friend’s advice: “he sd, for / christ’s sake, look / out where yr going.”

Squib 308: The Early Days of Television, Second Wave [by Alan Ziegler]

            In the early 1970s, cable comes to Manhattan, agonizingly one neighborhood at a time. The main draw is being able to watch Knicks home games. A company called Teleprompter (they write it TelePrompTer) is awarded the northern half of the island, with the stipulation that they offer Public Access channels. Teleprompter voluntarily throws in an equipped, staffed studio for anyone to reserve for live broadcasts. (Subsequently, they add commercial public access, spawning the likes of Midnight Blue and Ugly George.)

            Someone in my poetry workshop—which meets weekly at Westbeth—knows a curator at the Whitney named Tom with ambitions of producing for television and film. Tom invites a few of us to appear live on his Public Access show. My roommates will watch from home and give me notes.

            The studio, at 125^thand Lenox, has a big T.V. camera on a dolly along with lighting and sound equipment, and even a room to apply make-up (we don’t). Before we go on the air, Tom hands me the title card and asks me to hold it chest-level when the opening theme plays. “The cameraman won't show you.”

            The show feels good, though I don’t know if anyone is watching beyond my three roommates. As we’re leaving the studio, I am approached by Taylor Mead—of Andy Warhol Factory fame—who watched from the viewing room provided by Teleprompter for locals not wired for cable. Mead says he’s about to go on the air but he loved my poems and maybe next time we can get a drink.

            When I get home I ask my roommates how I looked, and one of them laughs and says, “Pretty silly holding that piece of cardboard and just staring into space.” I ask about the rest of the show, and another admits, “After about ten minutes we turned to the Knicks.”

            Excited about this entree into the entertainment world, our workshop forms The TelePoets. Tom will videotape us reading poems in city locations, and edit the segments for his show. “Who knows, maybe a local channel will pick it up for their public service quota.” After a couple of unedited segments, we stop hearing from Tom, who doesn’t answer his home phone. He’s asked us not to call him at work, but we’re worried and I call the Whitney.

            “There’s no such curator,” a man tells me, and asks what he looks like. “Yeah, that Tom,” he says, then with audibly clenched teeth adds, “Tom’s no longer here. And he worked in the mail room.”

            That evening, my phone rings. “Hi, it’s Tom, did we have a misunderstanding?”

            “We sure did. Do you want to explain?”

            “Well, I had you down for 4 p.m. today.” And I realize it’s Ted—my therapist—and I flaked on that day’s appointment.

            The TelePoets never hear from Tom again, and our show dies in development. I hold out hope (against hope) that one day Tom will emerge as a highly successful movie producer, and will start his Oscar acceptance speech with, “It all started in the mailroom…”

Squib 307: Notes on Willie Mays at the End, Followed by a Hypothetical [by Alan Ziegler]

    I’ve never liked when sportswriters disdain great athletes playing past their prime, arrogantly asserting they should have quit before the sad decline.

    Willie Mays was well past his prime at 40 when my father and I took my seven-year-old brother Philip to Shea Stadium on August 25 1971, so he could see one of the greatest players of all time. The Mets drew 16,000 fans over the season’s average for the game with the San Francisco Giants. Willie struck out three times in a row, but my brother got to see that swing, even if it wasn’t so sweet anymore. (He also saw Mays’s teammate Dave Kingman hit the side of the Giants' team bus, beyond the left-field bullpen.)

    The following year, while batting .184, Willie was cast off to the Mets, returning to the city of his early grandeur, 21 years after turning his back on Vic Wertz and breaking Cleveland’s heart from 350 feet away.

    In his final year, 1973, Willie Mays batted .211, which was 91 points lower than his career average. Sportswriter Bill Madden was among those to place Mays with “the many Hall of Famers who could never quite concede when it was time to quit,” lamenting “the everlasting image of a 42-year-old shell of former greatness, stumbling and falling down in the outfield in the 1973 World Series.”

    I treasure Mays memories from the ’73 World Series: He got the first hit of the series, and, in his last at-bat ever, drove in the go-ahead run off Rollie Fingers in Game Two (and yes, he stumbled getting out of the box).

    But the indelible moment gracing my memory for 46 years came when the umpire called out Bud Harrelson at the plate after a phantom tag. Willie was on-deck, and he anguished over a play that didn’t involve him for a team he barely knew.

    Not for nothing, but Willie wasn’t the only player who had trouble with fly balls in the blinding sun. Here’s 30-year-old left-fielder Cleon Jones.

    And by the way, Willie also stumbled in the outfield during the ’54 World Series—after making that magic catch and throw.

    All this is in preface for a hypothetical question I’ve been trying to formulate for many years. This is the closest I’ve gotten:

    If you could relive just one season of one major leaguer’s career, would you prefer to be Willie Mays in 1973, a shell of your former self (six home runs) but with a career’s worth of brilliant memories? Or would you choose, say, 23-year-old John Milner’s 1973 (23 homers), without a whole lot to remember, but a future to dream?

Squibs 299—306 [by Alan Ziegler]

299: The entrance requirement for The School of Hard Knocks is a degree from the Institute of Push Comes to Shove.

300: After listening to a bunch of Beach Boys songs, I wonder what their oeuvre would be like had they been raised in, say, Brooklyn.

301: Mishearing riding for writing: When I first listened to Son House’s “John the Revelator,” I heard:

            Tell me who's that riding, John the Revelator
            Tell me who's that riding, John the Revelator
            Tell me who's that riding, John the Revelator
            Wrote the book of the seven seals

And I pictured: John riding into town on his faithful donkey, with a satchel full of books to sign.

302: Mishearing writing for riding: When I first listened to Bob Dylan’s “All the Tired Horses” I heard:

            All the tired horses in the sun
            How'm I supposed to get any writing done? Hmm.

And I thought: Neat! Dylan is using tired horses in the sun as an objective correlative for writers block. Even now, when I can’t get any writing done, I think of those horses and take a sweet, restorative nap.

303: You want instant happy? Watch the last 42 seconds of To Have and Have Not. Don’t have that kind of time? The last 21 seconds will do it.

304: Now that I’ve reached an uncertain age, I find myself more and more living on my invented memories.

305: Is Schrödinger’s cat dead or alive? We don’t know! You want simultaneously dead and alive? Take Natalie Wood in my dream the other night: Natalie gives me her email address, and I ask her about Robert Wagner but she doesn’t want to talk about the night she died.

306: In the 60s, I never had a kumbaya moment while singing “Kumbaya.”

Squibs 289—298 [by Alan Ziegler]

289: The best pitcher on my Little League team announces he doesn’t “feel like playing” and walks off the field. I’ve been making good throws from shortstop, so the coach escorts me to the mound and says, “Just throw hard.” I become the go-to pitcher, starting or in relief (moving from shortstop). Occasionally, while I’m at shortstop, the third baseman crouches and yells, “Come on Ziggie, no batter Ziggie!”

290: Sgt. Bilko: meet Uncle Fester and Mr. Bluster.

291: This happened long-ago in America: I ask the young woman behind the counter in a Boston pharmacy for condoms. She looks stricken and retreats behind the medicinal barricade. A white-jacketed man emerges and informs me I am breaking the law, and “how dare you say such a thing to a young lady.”

292: Dump: meet Truck.

293: Perhaps at some point in school I could recite how a huge piece of metal lifts off the ground and lands relatively smoothly at the destination of the pilot's choosing. If so, I've forgotten, and I probably never really felt it in my bones, which are not hollow, which is one reason—as I now recall about birds—why I cannot fly.

294: I discovered I could fly when a truck backfired and I fled with the pigeons, scampering then lifting off, fueled by surprise and companionship. I wonder if this is a one-shot deal. But the only way to find out would be to land.

295: Last night I spent four minutes untangling the wires connected to a pair of headphones I put in a drawer alongside assorted wired devices. I do not recall spending any time tangling the wires before I closed the drawer. I have spent several hours of my life untangling wires, and I have never consciously tangled anything. It must be something I do.

296: Walkie: meet Talkie.

297: I see a mother and small child out of the corner of my eye. Someone steps between us as the mother’s hand swoops down and I hear a slapping sound as the child screams. The person between us passes, and I see the beach ball slowly descend as the child squeals, “Mommy, do it again!”

298: My fifth grade teacher assigned us to memorize the helping verbs but I didn’t. When she called on me, the best I could come up with was “assist, aid, comfort” (not really, but wouldn’t I have been something if I had?). She said (really) with stern firmness, “You will know them tomorrow.” And tomorrow I did, and I still do, six decades later (you’re going to have to trust me on this): am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, has, have, had, do, does, did, can, will, should, would, may, might, must, can, could.

Squibs 274—288 [by Alan Ziegler]

274: The case for religion: It is viable to live by that which cannot be disproven.

275: I have a closet full of unused items labelled Patent Pending. I’ve been meaning to contact the companies to see how it worked out for them.

276: We infantilize our dogs no matter how old they get.

277: Only a clairvoyant optometrist can successfully administer an eye-chart test to a clairvoyant.       

278: Travels with Latte (1): Erin, Latte, and I are strolling the tiny Tuscan hill town of Monteriggioni (ringed by towers Dante called “horrific giants”). A woman approaches with a 5-year-old shyly behind: “My daughter fell in love with your dog in Florence!”

279: If Mount Everest weren’t there, we’d have no reason to climb it.

280: Has anyone ever “calmly” sunk two free throws with the game on the line? Has anyone ever “rested comfortably” in a hospital?

281: Early literary influences: Wrestling magazine caption: “A tangle of arms and legs.” Local sportscaster: “He beat him to a pulp. And then he beat up the pulp.” The comma in Alfred E. Neuman’s “What, me worry?”

282: Travels with Latte (2): Erin, Latte, and I are sitting on a boulder in Central Park overlooking the Boathouse Café. A pre-teen girl asks if she can pet our dog, which Latte tolerates. A few hours later, as we wait to cross 92^ndand Broadway, a voice through a car window: “Hello, Latte!” The Central Park girl waves as the car turns down Broadway.

283: Prophetic entry from my 8^thgrade journal: “In Science we went over chemical equations and actions for how electricity is produced in a dry cell. I don’t get it at all. I doubt if I’ll ever get it.”

284: Fragrance-free aromatherapy for the allergic.

285: When I am nine, I fall prey to a T.V. commercial for a cereal containing, for a limited time only, a lucky charm ring. I want the ring badly. I repeatedly tell my mother the name of the cereal, and, if she forgets, “Make sure you get a box with a picture of the lucky charm ring.” “I know, I know, lucky charm,” she says as she leaves. She returns home and triumphantly, with a “ta da!” pulls out the last item from the last bag: A box of ring-less Lucky Charm cereal.

286: Travels with Latte (3): Erin, Latte, and I are crossing Lucca’s empty Piazza dell’ Anfiteatro, early-morning. We hear a calling voice getting closer: “Latte?...No?...Yes?...Si! Latte!!” It’s Simone, who met Latte in a café a year ago. “Latte forgets, but I remember,” Simone says. Latte wags her tail, and we all start our day with a smile.

287: At the coffee shop, my friend asks the counterman, “If I order a hamburger do I get French fries with it?” “No, if you order a hamburger you get a hamburger; if you order French fries you get French fries....” “…But sometimes you don’t have to ask…” “Here you have to ask.” My friend holds his hand up and says, “It’s just not worth discussing.”

288: In the early ‘70s, I meet two Chicago poets browsing in the Eighth Street Bookstore. When they’re back in Chicago, we exchange poems, publish in each other’s magazines. They return to New York a year later, bringing along three friends, camping out in my living room. After a couple of days on the periphery of their bonhomie, I start to feel like an outsider, exacerbating my recent stretch of loneliness. Late one night, I retreat to the roof, where it is dark and chilly. I withdraw deeper into myself, and I fear going back down, where someone will surely ask me what’s wrong, as my face betrays a secret I have only told myself. One of the visitors appears and says, “You must spend a lot of time up here. Wow, you can see the river. There goes a ship.” I don’t tell that I have never looked at the river long enough to see a ship. We are joined by another, and another, until all five are with me once again. They ask questions about my life, and no one mentions my sadness, maybe they can’t see it in the dark. The chill accumulates into a shiver. Someone appears with wine—I didn’t notice him go back down. A few minutes later, someone else brings me a sweater. When the wine is gone, we return to the apartment. Soon they are all asleep, two on a couch, one in a chair, and two in sleeping bags. I go to my room, warm and happy, eager for breakfast.

Squibs 264—273 [by Alan Ziegler]

264: In a high school hallway Michael Brown sidles up to me and whispers in my ear, “Read On the Road it’s the bible.” I don’t know what he’s talking about until I do, and then I do.

265: Older than yesterday younger than tomorrow will be the way it will be until we will no more.

266: In Little League, I hit a bloop single over second base and go to third on a passed ball. The coach whispers in my ear: “The catcher lobs the ball back to the pitcher. As soon as it leaves his hand, you fly home.” I barrel down slide head down, and when I look up, the pitcher is still holding the ball. Later in the game, I wind up on third again, and the manager whispers, “Did you like doing that? Do you want to do it again?” The catcher awaits me with the ball and a grin, and applies a tag so hard the imprint of the seams can still be detected on an MRI of my past.

267: I’ve lost all feeling in my phantom heart.

268: Uncle Fester: meet Mr. Bluster.

269: In the 60s, we’d read that a new Dylan or Beatles or Butterfield album is about to be released and look for it almost daily at Sam Goody’s in the Green Acres mall, first checking the new release display, then scouring the alphabetical bins, one day hitting paydirt, until a salesman tells us that new releases only come in on Tuesdays, robbing us of daily hope in return for one day of either elation or week-long disappointment.

270: Once upon a 2 a.m. in the late 50s, the nice man on the suburban block wakes the neighbors repeatedly screaming: “Let me in! Unlock this door! Let me in!” I am still trying to write the novel.

271: I once wiped away the most beautiful tear in the history of sadness. 

272: Soothe the savage beast’s breast.

273: Go to hell. Go to heaven. I don’t care, just get out of here.

Squibs 246—263 [by Alan Ziegler]

246. After Hitting Snooze: Once again I am on a talk-show panel, and the host asks questions for which I have witty and insightful answers, often contradicting what another guest says. Once again every time I try to interject, a panelist talks over me, and the host never intervenes on my behalf or calls on me. Once again the longer I am ignored, the angrier I get until I start railing that no one is listening to me. Once again they continue to act as if I am not even there. I don’t know why I keep going back on this damned show.
     
247. Newspaper editor to irascible reporter in There Goes My Heart: “You have to give me more respect. Or better copy.”
     
     
248. The goal of poetry is to split hairs on the heads of however many angels fit on the head of a pin.
     
     
249. I teach what I know. My students can cook sensational omelets, fingerpick “Guabi Guabi,” and make my wife very happy. But as I grade the final exams, my mind goes blank: I can’t remember my mother's maiden name, Xavier Cugat’s wives, the infield of the 1954 Brooklyn Dodgers, which corner had the best egg cream in midtown in the 70s, why the Senior Prom ended with everyone thinking I wound up in a ditch, what I said that got me this job, etc. I call my only A+ former student and ask him to grade the exams. He refuses. I am fired and he is hired. I am now in his class doing extremely well because I was one hell of a teacher.
     
     
250. The rain is the river coming home.
     
     
251. If you can’t follow a rule, enjoy being the exception that proves the rule.
     
     
     
252. The movie theater of my early youth was the Kinema on Pitkin Avenue under the El in East New York, where I had to turn around in my seat during House of Wax, my first—and last—3-D horror movie. Years later a teacher corrected me for pronouncing cinema with a hard c.
     
     
253. It happened so gradually I hardly noticed: one day I realized I could tell if it was John or Paul singing lead.
     
     
254. Ko-Rec-Type: Two wrongs make a white.
     
     
255. This sweet and salty trend has its roots, as far as I know, at Morris’s candy store in Lynbrook in the late 50s when my friend mischievously reached for a pretzel rod from the counter dispenser and dropped it into my malted.
     
     

256-261. Faits Divers fromThe Insect Times (with gratitude and apologies to Félix Fénéon)

            Remains found splattered on the kitchen wall have been identified as fly Bill Smits. Preliminary tests indicate a newspaper slaying. Police will be buzzing the usual suspects.

            In what is suspected of being a ritualistic cult murder/suicide, every member of the ant colony under the bathroom sink was poisoned. Investigators found traces of the poisonous substance on the feet of the Queen.

            With a bright future ahead of her, caterpillar Susan Sweet was stepped on last night by a humongous neighbor child. “She was about to metamorphose any day,” her distraught fiancé said while perching shiva. “I told her I’d wait for her. We were going to fly away together. We looked forward to our great great great great grandchildren settling in Ontario.”

            Flea Sam Smith died, apparently of natural causes, at his last known address on the right hind leg of Duke the dog. “He was quiet,” said Duke. “I barely knew he was here.”

            Half a tick named Conrad Stick was burned to death while burrowing in a calf. He is survived by his better half, who is currently in seclusion.       

            Roach Emily was found flattened. “She was the slow one,” her mother said. “We always said, ‘The poor dear will never survive a nuclear war.’”

262. A dean informed me that my review committee for reappointment was offended by my use of the word hardass in my professional statement. “Smartass,” I said. “Excuse me?” he replied through pursed lips. “Smartass,” I repeated. “The word I used to describe me in my early career was ‘smartass.’”
     
     
263. Caption: Wife to husband sitting fretfully at his desk: “How could you have the appearance of a conflict of interests when you don’t have any interests?”

Squibs 245, 246 [by Alan Ziegler]

245. While in college, my songwriting partner and I bus to Manhattan from Schenectady to audition for Vanguard records. We don’t get a contract and my guitar is stolen from the waiting room. Back in Schenectady, I call the A&R guy we auditioned for (“not ready”) to see if the guitar turned up. “No, but, hey we have insurance. Just come back down and file a police report.” “Not worth the trip down, it was a cheap guitar, a Guava written in the same script as Goya.” “I distinctly remember you had a pre-war Martin D-18.” “Not me…” “All right, if you insist…” Years later I hear the subtext and picture Mr. A&R hanging up the phone and just shaking his head.

246 (The Dr. Facci Fellowship). In 1971 I am rear-ended at a red light, hurt but not injured. The other driver assures me he has good insurance. An actor friend refers me to his “lawyer acquaintance” who got him a quick settlement. “Think of it as the way big companies support the arts.” The lawyer acquaintance hands me a card for Dr. Facci, with a Mott Street address. “Mafia country. The safest neighborhood in the city.”
    The dusty waiting room is filled with elderly women, but Dr. Facci waves me right  in. He looks like the Orson Welles’s character in Touch of Evil ten years later on a really bad day. Ancient medical journals are strewn across his desk with several unmarked bottles of pills. “So, you have a case of whiplash?”
    “Yes, it hurts when I think.”
    Dr. Facci looks at me with a weary sadness, then seems to smile a bit, and growls, “Hippie and a smartass. But I’ll take care of you.” He lumbers around the desk, palpates my neck, and tells me to come in every week for six weeks. He jots down a note, hands me some pills, and says, “Here, for when you think too hard,” adding, “Don’t get excited, it’s sugar.”
    I like Dr. Facci.
    I enjoy roaming Little Italy each week, lunching on pasta, trying to spot Mafiosi. The waiting room is always full, and Dr. Facci takes me right away, palpates my neck, jots a note, and sends me on my way with a few sugar pills. At first I wonder how his career sunk so low but I come to realize he must provide an essential service to the neighborhood. Perhaps my scam is subsidizing medical care for the elderly.
   After six visits to Little Italy, I am awarded a $750 Dr. Facci Fellowship.

A Philip Roth Moment (Squib 244) [by Alan Ziegler]

Philip Roth made several (unpaid) visits to Columbia MFA classes (through his friendships with David Plante and Benjamin Taylor). He asked if he could have access to the library, so we applied to designate him as a Visiting Scholar. When the request was approved, I gave him directions to where he could pick up his card, and said, "Remember, you can take books home. Then you won't have to come down here every day." Philip looked at me quizzically, and for a few seconds I thought he might not have recognized the quote from Goodbye Columbus. Then he said, with that sliver of a grin I'd seen several times: "Are you referencing a mid-20th Century novelist?" And he went off to get his library card.

Application File (Conclusion; continued from yesterday) [by Alan Ziegler]

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

December 19
    It is to our great chagrin that we will not be able to offer you a position, as our operations will be shut down immediately following completion of our open correspondence. There is widespread disagreement as to whether this cessation was precipitated by an inadequacy in our business plan or poor execution thereof. Suffice it to say, we all agree that had you begun this process sooner, the outcome would have been more felicitous.

January 2
    It was kind of you to surprise us at Chez Avec Amis (you remembered!), and to pick up the check. Bringing the glove was a lovely touch. We are intrigued by your offer, and we feel we have much to contribute. The requisite paperwork is enclosed. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

THE END

Application File (Part Four; continued from yesterday) [by Alan Ziegler]

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

October 26
    We have finally received completed reports from all those who attended your interview. (It is a good sign that we could barely pry people away from their computers.) We will now disperse into the field.

November 9
    We have completed a series of meetings with your references. Not unexpectedly in matters of this kind, several issues have arisen. Kindly respond to the enclosed questions. Please understand – as we do – that the quoted material is no more – or less – than one version of the truth. (Two questions were inserted by one of us over the strenuous objections of many.)

November 15
    We are pleased to tell you that we found your responses quite satisfactory; any new questions raised by your answers, we all agree, are better left untethered. And we are delighted to report that a suitable position has just opened up (please refer to parentheses in previous letter). As you can imagine, there is much paperwork to be done. You shall hear from us before the end of the year.

CONCLUSION TOMORROW

Application File (Part Three; continued from yesterday) [by Alan Ziegler]

Part One

Part Two

September 17
    Thank you for your interest in our company. Unfortunately, we do not have any appropriate openings at the present time. We shall endeavor to contact you should that situation change.

September 23
    Please disregard the previous letter, which was the result of a clerical error. We regret any inconvenience. We might add that we found your response quite understandable.

October 9
    We are pleased to offer you a personal interview. Due to renovations underway in our offices, we invite you to meet us at Chez Avec Amis, a cozy bistro in a quiet corner of town tomorrow at 6 p.m. We have reserved the back room. Directions enclosed. Kindly bring any available photographs from the attached list. We apologize for the short notice, and assure you it is not the result of a last-minute cancellation.

October 11
    Did you inadvertently happen to wind up with an extra left glove (the designer tag is: Vera Pelle)?

CONTINUED TOMORROW

Application File (Part Two; continued from yesterday) [by Alan Ziegler]

Part One

September 5
    We are in need of additional supporting materials. You should be assured that our request reflects our voracious appetite for reading about you. Now that we are again at full-strength, we lack enough of you to go around, and several of us are feeling bereft. In the event there are no teachers or employers untapped by your extensive dossier, we suggest that you take a temporary position and enroll in an evening course.

September 9
    Could you provide us with a list of ex-lovers? If so, please describe the physical high and low moments of each relationship, from both points of view. Kindly indicate the circumstances in which each relationship was terminated and who, in your judgment, was at fault. Forgive the personal nature of this request. We are doing our part to ameliorate the blanket of anomie that pervades the workplace.

September 14
    What is the origin of your last name? Has it been shortened? Your answer will be used for statistical purposes only.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

Application File (Part One) [by Alan Ziegler]

May 3
    Your application has been received but not yet acknowledged. This response should not be inferred as being anything other than what it says.

May 11
    We are pleased to acknowledge your application. We will now set out to get a clear sense of who you are. This will take time, as we take nothing and no one lightly. We are nothing if not thorough and we are thorough, which makes us truly something.

June 19
    We write with the good news (to us– it will come as no news to you) that we have confirmed you are who you say you are and have done what you say you did. Now we address the task of evaluating who you are and what you have done. This is what we get up for in the morning, and what we think about when we fall asleep at night.

August 12
    Our silence should not be construed as neglect or negativity. We merely misjudged our vacation schedules (we were done-in by unintended consequences of the summer house share) and had a run of ill health (see previous parentheses). We barely have the people power to write these letters. We could use someone like who we think you are.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

Workshop Dos and Donts [by Alan Ziegler]

 

I received a gratifying email from a former Columbia MFA student—now a creative writing teacher—about a chapter in my book The Writing Workshop Note Book (Soft Skull / Counterpoint). I am reprinting the note, followed by an adapted excerpt from the chapter. At my former student’s request, I have removed details that might identify the school and am withholding her name.

Hello Professor Ziegler,
            Our seminar-style classes have students of mixed grade levels—freshmen through senior. Recently, the returning students staged a bit of a mutiny. Three pulled me aside and complained about a lack of “professionalism” in the workshopping abilities of the several new students. Apparently, they felt that their own writing, comments, and insights were much more sophisticated than those of the younger students, and that they, the “experienced” workshoppers, took the process much more seriously, which had led to a desperate crisis. 
            I heard them out and asked them what they thought we could do. They wanted to have an in-class discussion in which they could air their concerns (and, of course, also assert their perceived superiority, I knew).
            So, for our next class I handed out your first chapter in “Part Two: Notes on Workshopping.” We went around the room, each student taking a turn reading a paragraph or two aloud. Beforehand, I asked them while reading to make note of those sections that rang true to them or felt most meaningful or helped them discover something they didn’t know or felt they could use. 
            (Worth noting: as soon as we finished reading, one of the discontented three closed her packet dramatically and exclaimed, “That was great!”) 
            Afterward I asked each student to share what they learned they might be able to think about or do differently to get the most out of the workshop. We spent 1 1/2 hours of our 3-hour class reading and discussing your chapter, and each student (even those poor terrified freshmen) shared their feelings about their work and experience, ranging from fear of speaking because of feelings of intimidation (without mentioning any names or making eye content) and fear of “not being right” to acknowledgment of tendencies to dominate the conversation (one of those three upperclassman, remarkably). The effects were quite wonderful, and the group left class in bright spirits. 
            So, thank you.
            I wanted to let you know what had happened so you could add this small moment to what I am sure is a long and continually growing list of success stories directly linked to your approach to teaching writing and to your invaluable notebook, which you so generously shared with all of us. Little did I know at the time how helpful both would be.
            With my thanks and best regards,

            (name withheld)

Workshop Do’s and Don’ts (adapted from The Writing Workshop Note Book)

            DO be there. If you are absent you cannot “make up” the work any more than athletes in team sports can make up games they miss. Even if the teacher allows one or two absences, don’t take them as a matter of entitlement; classes should not be cut like excess verbiage. If you are in an academic program, don’t tell the instructor that you had to miss class because a history paper was due (unless you would tell your history professor that you missed class because you were writing a poem).

            DON’T try to establish yourself as the alpha writer. It is not good for you, and it is not good for the workshop. A friend told me that in her first term in a graduate writing program, several students submitted their “greatest hits” for critique, more concerned with establishing themselves as workshop stars than with transforming their writing. They left the workshop with pretty much what they had brought to it. My friend, on the other hand, brought in raw material and left with a chunk of her first novel.

            DO be on time. Being late for a literature class is disruptive, but Balzac or any Bronte will not suffer. If you are late for a writing workshop, a very alive writer could be hurt if a critique is in progress. Chronic lateness can be infectious, causing critique time to be truncated.

            DON’T try to establish yourself as the alpha critic. Witty, scathing critiques should be saved for reviews of books by authors making tons of undeserved money. One student was told in class that his writing was “an affront to literature.” The workshop is not the guardian of literature; we are door-openers, not gatekeepers.

            DO be helpful to the teacher in giving everyone an opportunity to speak. In some workshops, a few students tend to dominate the discussions. If you are one of the talkers, you can help by hanging back occasionally. Think of it as being selfish—receiving rather than dispensing wisdom.

            DON’T think: What kind of person would write such a thing? The only transgressions you should hold authors responsible for are their characters’ unmotivated words and deeds.

            DO be a nurturer.

            DON’T be a coddler.

            DO be patient and don’t make snap judgments about the effectiveness of a teacher or workshop. If you feel frustrated, don’t let it hamper your full and open participation; it is hard to learn from inside a shell. The wisdom derived from a class may not take full effect immediately. You may find yourself internalizing a teacher’s voice years down the road. This is not to say that the workshop should create a posthypnotic state, where you blindly repeat what you were told, but if you ingest as much as possible during the term, you have a good shot at reaping benefits long after the workshop is over. And even what appear to be irreconcilable differences can have a felicitous effect on your work, just as irritants induce oysters to make pearls.

            DON’T be too jealous of any successes by others in the workshop; success can be contagious. You never know where your classmates will wind up, and what they might be able to do for you. This doesn’t mean that you won’t ever experience an inkling of what Gore Vidal was referring to when he revealed, “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” If this schadenfreude-in-reverse happens, just shrug and think, Oh, you again, and offer congratulations. Think: "I am literally in the same class as this genius!"

            DO be attentive to your classmates’ work. Read with care and concern.

            DON’T belabor a point once it’s been made and remade. I was on a jury when an attorney kept hammering home the same nail, until the judge said, “Noted, now move on.”

            DO be communicative with your teacher if you have any significant problems with your writing or with the class.

            DON’T be intimidated by what your classmates write. There’s a chance you may be doing something they can’t do. The story goes that a marathon champion met someone at a party who had just run a marathon. The champion asked what the fellow’s time was, and the guy sheepishly confessed that he hadn’t even broken five hours. The champion replied with admiration, “I can’t imagine running for five hours straight.”

            DO be generous to your classmates by giving thoughtful comments. A workshop’s success is dependent not only on the openness of students to take criticism, but also on their willingness to give it. Some students don’t want to say anything they are not absolutely sure of, so they don’t say anything. Keep in mind that responses are as much works-in-progress as the pieces under consideration, and our ideas can crystallize through talking. As Gracie Allen said to George Burns, “Do you know that almost everything I know today I learned by listening to myself talk about something I didn’t understand.”

            DON’T try to get even. The following comment by a student evinced an audible reaction from several others when I read it to the class: “I often feel guarded with my criticism of others’ work, for fear that anything too harsh (honest?) might result in a reciprocal attack on my work.” Such retaliation is rare, but it can be like a chloroform-dipped rag on the life-breath of the class. Fortunately, the workshop process has a self-regulating feature: other voices are there to dilute the poison. If you do feel attacked, don’t react hostilely. Break a pencil point if you want to channel your anger (don’t do it with a fountain pen), and try to recast the comment into something useful. If the irritation persists, talk to your classmate or the teacher (but do it outside of class)—or make a pearl out of it.

            DO be a good sport. If a classmate gets knocked down with criticism, extend a hand rather than pile on. (Perhaps the teacher should carry a penalty flag; anyone piling on has to move five yards away from the table for the next comment.)

            DON’T keep score. A student came to my office, concerned that I often praised others whose work she considered to be weaker than hers; she feared that it devalued the praise I gave her. I asked her if my being harsher on the work of others would make her feel better. She replied, somewhat embarrassed, that her real concern was whether my praise for her work was sincere. I suggested that if she listened carefully to my comments, she could detect different levels of praise. But, more important, my comments are not only pitched to the general level of the class, but also to the level of each individual, so I might be singing praise in different keys.

            DO be attentive when your work is being critiqued, and make note of everything said. Follow up on any points that might need clarification or elaboration. The more you sow during the critique, the more you reap when you rewrite.

            DON’T repeat to outsiders what you hear and read in the workshop; assume that all information is confidential and all pieces are restricted to workshop members unless otherwise stated. This is especially important with material that may refer to the authors’ friends and families. (Don’t go to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of a classmate and say, “Oh, Aunt Bess, I’m so sorry about the typo on your Elvis tattoo, and does it still hurt to sit down?”) I once received a phone call from the father of an upset student. His daughter had never taken a writing class, but her former boyfriend had workshopped a story about their breakup, which was being passed around the dorm.

            DO be courteous with how you dress your manuscript for school. Unless instructed otherwise: Double-space (except for poetry); leave wide margins (top, bottom, right, left) for notes; run spell-checker, then proofread the old-fashioned way; place commas and periods inside the closing quotation mark; semicolons and colons, outside; indent new paragraphs (if you do not indent, insert a blank line between paragraphs); number pages (the computer will do this for you, but you must issue the order); don’t play with typography—just use a basic font (this is a draft, not a brochure); put your name, the title, and the date on the front page, along with an indication if the piece is in response to an assignment or is a revision of something previously turned in; fasten with a staple or clip.

            DON’T let outside relationships enter the workshop. If you know any of your classmates in other contexts, try to neutralize whatever affection or animosity you may have for them.

            DO be open. Not everything presented by your classmates will be your cup of tea, but your job is to sip from whatever is served. It is often a good thing for a writer to go through a literary-ideological phase, such as eschewing all first-person or present-tense narratives, or declaring “realism rules” or “surrealism is the only response to the wacky world.” When the writer’s and the respondent’s ideologies clash, the critiquer should be receptive. If you do make a comment colored by, say, an aversion to minimalist fiction or anything resembling science fiction, make your comment in the spirit of “This is what I would do if I were you,” rather than  “This is what you would do if you were me.” The workshop puts a solitary act into public scrutiny, turning a solo effort into a group cause. We must not homogenize the individual voices in the room by maneuvering critiques toward a common vision. Rome may have been designed with all roads leading to it, but the workshop is more like an expanded version of Frost’s yellow wood, with roads diverging in many directions. Follow your classmates down the roads they choose; you may discover places to explore on your own.

Squibs 234-243 [By Alan Ziegler]

234. As a young reporter in 1970, I was assigned to review a musical billed as a tryout for Broadway. I declared the production a “pleasant enough way to spend a summer evening, but in its current form, it’s not up to bigger and better things.” Always trying to spice my pieces, I concluded that the experience was like being served a full meal of melba toast—you come away “full but not satisfied.” A few days later, while I was reporting for a feature, a young woman recognized my name and said, “Usually these reviews are puff pieces.” She paused and added, “Yours was interesting.” And a few days later, I was interviewing a chamber group that would be performing at the same arts center where the musical was running. One of the musicians recognized my name and said, “The people from the show were talking about you. They hate you.”

235. “I’ve Got to Pass Your House to Get to My House” (written by Lew Brown, sung by Bing Crosby)

236. I spent ten minutes untangling the wires connected to a pair of headphones I put in a drawer alongside assorted wired devices. I do not recall spending any time tangling the wires before I closed the drawer. I have spent several hours of my life untangling wires, and I have never consciously tangled anything. It must be something I do.

237. In the mid-1970s I saved up to buy a reconditioned IBM Selectric II typewriter, the typesetting machine of choice for non-funded small magazines. The characters populated a tiny globe called an element. If you smooshed two keystrokes, the machine would remember which order you hit them and space the letters evenly on the page. (In effect, the Selectric had a RAM of one bite.) Writer friends came over to use my Selectric; someone commented, “Wow, I didn’t know civilians were allowed to have these.” I was told when I bought it that I would need to have a service contract with IBM because there’s a thin cable connected to a “gear shift” that tends to snap. And snap it did, every few months, but one quick call would result in an IBM repairman showing up, sometimes the same day; for the first time, I felt cared for by a giant corporation. When I took a writer-in-residence position at the Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan, I didn’t think I could write without my Selectric. I had it shipped, and a couple of weeks into the term I returned to my cottage to find the box on my porch. I plugged it in, got the motor humming and started to type. Snapped cable. The nearest service center was downstate, hours away. The next day a serviceman drove up and fixed the cable. Before long, people were knocking on my door to use my typewriter.

238. Molly Bloom: “Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby.”

239. On the way toward a glorious rainbow, a snake in the grass came across a stick in the mud. “Don't you just love the feel of dew on the belly?” the snake said, but the stick didn't answer so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came across a bump on a log and said, “Nice weather for the ducks; would you like to share one?” but the bump was mum so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came across a hole in the wall and said, “Hey there, what're you looking at?” but the hole was mute so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came across a hooker with a heart of gold and said, “You and me, what do you say?” But the hooker turned away from the snake because she had just accepted a college scholarship, so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came to the end of the glorious rainbow and spotted a pot of gold. “I'm not falling for that,” the snake hissed and slithered on.

240. I am taking Clinical Psychology in college and use that as justification for taking advantage of the free psychotherapy offered by faculty—it’s research. Talking to my therapist is like opening up with a friend, and I always feel slightly rebuffed when he says, “We have to knock it off.” We exchange a couple of cards after I graduate, and when I visit campus we meet for lunch. He tells me he’s at the college because he was miserable treating really sick patients. I ask about his wife, whom I have met a couple of times, and am shocked when he tells me that they are separated. I remember seeing a picture of his two kids, and I ask how his children are coping. He pauses with his roast beef sandwich in his hand and says, evenly, “How much do you charge?” We finish our lunch and I never see him again.

241. Two children on subway; one gets seat next to mom, his sister must stand grasping the pole. She smiles and narrates as she dances: “I get to stand up, spin around, touch the ground.”

242. In my early years of teaching I bought a briefcase, but it didn’t work for cramming books and folders on the fly. Each week The New Yorker ran a small ad for a Danish School Bag at a place called the Chocolate Soup on the Upper East Side. One of the testimonials was “This bag got me though law school.” I wanted one, badly. I was nervous about going to the store—Upper East Side, New Yorker, law school and all—and thought I had made a mistake when Chocolate Soup turned out to be a tiny children’s store. But yes, they did have the Danish School Bag, which the store owner had fallen in love with while traveling and arranged to sell in her store. Twenty-five years later I had lunch with one of my early students. I asked her what she remembered from those years when she was in elementary school coming—sometimes two or three times a week—to the Teachers & Writers Collaborative room at P.S. 75. “Your bag,” she replied. “You had the coolest bag. Then Lisa found out where you got it and bought one. We hated her for it.”

243. It’s fine to write something corny, as long as it’s fresh off the cob, hot, and sweet.

Squibs 224-233 [by Alan Ziegler]

224. After my mother died, my father liked to visit the geese at the local pond. One day, a goose was frantically scooting about, yipping plaintively like a dog. “Geese are monogamous,” I said. “I think he got separated from his mate.” My father grew as agitated as the goose, looking around to see if he could spot the mate. Finally, the geese found each other and entered the pond. My father wept.

225. If you want to capture the sea, hold your hands out, cupped, and imagine you are writing this.

226. My father on line at the Post Office takes a step backward onto a woman’s foot. “Ooooh pain,” she says sweetly. He loves telling the story.

227. I watched a master dance class taught by the choreographer Bella Lewitsky, during which she asked students to execute a series of steps from one end of the dance floor to the other. Whenever a student faltered and lapsed into a sheepish gait, Lewitsky would command, “Finish the line.”

228. My mother and I sip coffee as Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park” comes on the radio. Some people find the song and performance sappy, but it always grabs my guts and I drift off into sweet pain and longing. My mother is quiet, too, and when the instrumental kicks in she says, “I can really relate to this song—losing the recipe for a cake.” From then on, I will be an even bigger sap for that song.

229. When you are on a collision course with a stranger on the street or store aisle, the two of you choreograph a little dance and move on. Lately, I have been having more than my share of dance partners, usually ending with bows and smiles. But not today: I reach a supermarket corner—a one-way aisle with two-way traffic—and encounter a suited man. One of us will have to do the back steps of a supermarket cha-cha. He barrels through, declaring “I don’t negotiate.” Later, I am about to enter a subway car just as a huge Bronze Age sculpture of a man is about to get out. Before we can dance, he declares: “You’d best get out of my way, sonny.” If they won’t dance, I can’t make them.

230. In the hospital elevator, with my father after the confirming diagnosis, down to the ground floor, door won’t open. “Al, do something,” he implores, his claustrophobia cutting off oxygen. I push buttons randomly and the door opens. I did something, we got out. There’s nothing I can do.

231. Julie London's "Cry Me a River." Coltrane's run of notes after the bass solo in “A Love Supreme.” The third movement of Tchaikovsky's Third String Quartet. Pete Seeger's spoken introduction to "Living in the Country" on his Bitter and the Sweet album.

232. Open your eyes to see. Close them to see again.

233. There was a tree in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid it and went crashing into open space. I’ve never been the same.

Squibs 214-223 [by Alan Ziegler]

214. In college, a friend told me he overheard someone say, “I don’t like Ziegler’s type but I like Ziegler.”

215. An essay on the electronic media: You can't tell the time by looking at the newspaper.

216. Here’s a story I used to tell a lot: “In the late 1960s, I was eating lunch in Washington Square Park when I saw a bum asleep under a tree. I quietly placed half of my corned beef sandwich next to him, then went back to my bench, hoping he would wake up before I had to leave. He stirred, unwrapped the sandwich, peeked under the bread, scowled, and pulled out a jar of mustard from his coat pocket.” Everyone enjoyed the story, though no one believed it is true. It is—as far as I know.

217. Why we need gun control: When I was eight, I got into a fight I was bound to lose. Impulsively I took the wad of bubblegum out of my mouth and rubbed it in the kid’s hair. He ran home crying. Later, his mother came to our house, furious, and told my parents her son now has a bald spot where she had to cut away.

218. The guy across from me on the Long Island Railroad can barely keep his eyes open. The cuffs of his pants are fringing, his shoes have been mended with black tape, and he seems long past drunk. The conductor approaches, “All tickets, please!” The man fumbles through his pockets, then shrugs. “You don’t have a ticket, do you?” the conductor says, and the man shakes his head. The conductor pulls a schedule out of his pocket, punches a few holes in it, and places it in the slot on the man’s seat. He continues on his rounds.

219. Miles Davis: “I never think about not being able to do anything. I just pick up my horn and play the hell out of it.”

220. The summer of 69 I came across vending machine that sold water for 25 cents a gallon. I took a picture of it to prove that such a thing existed.

221. William G. Hutherton on Chamfort:  “A few months’ nomad existence in Normandy with two other scapegraces followed, and then the prodigal returned, was forgiven and became an abbé.”

222. My gun is made of glass; I will only be able to use it once. My knife is rubber; it will work until I try to use it. My bomb has a short fuse I can’t outrun. My hypodermic needle is loaded with placebo, which I can only use as a truth serum on those who trust me. I am a one-man army, armed to the teeth. But I am one nervous wreck, so don’t mess with me.

223. I stand in front of my own door and push the bell repeatedly with one hand while banging with the other. Laughing as I push faster and bang harder. “Open up!” I yell. “Open up, damn it! I know you’re out here!”

Fragments 204-213 from Selected Squibs [by Alan Ziegler]

204. February 1967, Union College frigid quad, “Light My Fire” full blast from dorm open window. After the organ intro, “Light My Fire” from another room—a Doors round. Fraternity guys stop to listen. My folk music friends and I stop to listen. More dorm windows open. Someone yells, “Blow My Mind.”

205. All the world’s a stage but how many players are off  book?

206. My mother can no longer speak, but her eyes listen. This may be my last chance. “I want you to know that I learned a lot from you about being a teacher. I watched you working the counter at Woolworths. You put on the extra piece of lettuce for the old lady who never left more than a quarter tip even though your boss said not to give extra food. You were always watching, you were always listening, and you always cared. I try to be that way and people tell me I’m a good teacher.” If the eyes are truly the window to the soul, I can see from their shimmer that my words have reached her soul. I will never be sure of what I see next:  The shimmer seems to turn into a vapor above her and is gone. The next day, so is she.

207. On the bus a man talks to a young woman while his ten-year-old daughter tries to listen. When the woman gets off the bus, the man explains, “That was one of my students.” The girl asks, “Is she the one who stole your ideas?”

208. Perhaps the first electronic blogger was Will Rogers, who—from 1926 to 1935—submitted short newspaper pieces via telegram from wherever he happened to be: LONDON, Aug. 25.—France is very quiet. The rise in taxes was only proposed. Deer season opened in Scotland for all those who can’t hit grouse. Debts and dictators quiet today. Rogers often composed quickly and submitted his copy unedited.

209. Summer 1969 working for the Riverside Press-Enterprise, I cover a folksinger’s visit to Chino State Prison. She sings Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” (“And picking up angel who just arrived here from the Coast”). I interview a burly prisoner wearing the prison uniform of blue jeans and work shirt. He tells me he’s a Hells Angel, and I ask if he’ll go back to the Angels when he gets out. He replies, “It’s a lifetime thing.” He has a question about one of the songs: “That thing about picking up the angel—was she singing about a Hells Angel?” “Yeah, you could interpret it that way.” His face softens. “That’s what I thought. I felt a touch of apathy in my chest when I heard that."

210. Prose poems can be quick, which is not to say rushed. A person who is rushed is often careless and forgetful of details. The race goes to the swift who stay on their feet. But if you do fall—fall gloriously and capture that pose.   

211. Our houseguest opens the refrigerator and smiles. “Someone brought home baked goods from Entenmann’s.”

212. Our dusky conure Dulcinea goes missing. We search every drawer, nook, and cranny in the apartment, including pillow cases, where she has been known to crawl. We make sure all windows are closed. After two hours we pretty much give up hope of finding her alive. In the third check of the closet I noticed the lump in a pair of pants. As I gently extricate Dulcinea, I can feel her breathing and shout, “She’s alive!” I gently put her on the bed to see if she is hurt. Well-rested, she soars around the room and down the hallway.

213. Life never gets old but we do.