Whew!

Where to begin? It’s been months since I wrote anything for this blog—with good reason! I’ve been to Alaska for an 11 day vacation. See the picture below. I’ve teamed up with Ron Self in starting our very own poetry press: Brick Road Poetry Press. Our start up entailed me typesetting, formatting, proofreading, and correcting the text. Also I laid out the cover and formatted that. Our first book is due out in about 2 weeks, entitled Dancing on the Rim by poet Clela Reed. I’m very proud of it already since I find Clela’s poetry to be top notch. This is not just another poetry collection. It’s one that rewards the reader the first time through and the tenth time through. On top of all that I’ve been working my normal day job at the church, and presiding over the Georgia Poetry Society. Recently I’ve been sinking a lot of time into the pre-planning and publicity for our next quarterly meeting on July 25th. Whew! There’s good reason why I feel like I’ve got three full-time jobs.

I also want to put out a big thanks to Jerri Beck, Robert Boliek, Suzanne Coker, Jim Ferguson, Irene Latham, and Barry Marks, The Big Table Poets, for coming from Birmingham to Columbus, GA for our first Thursday of the month poetry reading on July 2nd. Their presentation was outstanding! I can’t wait to read their new collection EINSTEIN AT THE ODEON CAFÉ.

The Brass Verdict (2008) by Michael Connelly

This is not so much a book review as it is a WARNING. The Brass Verdict is without a doubt or hesitation the most disappointing novel I’ve read by Michael Connelly—and I have read them all. The plot is plodding and quite boring. The conclusion is anticlimactic. Mickey Haller as main character and narrator is not nearly as appealing as he was in The Lincoln Lawyer. For most of this novel, he seems like a dime-a-dozen defense lawyer, in it for the money and the fame, giving lip-service to justice and the merits of the US court/trial system. Harry Bosch comes across as a stereotype of the tough and ruthless LA Homicide Cop, not at all the complex “I speak for the victims” force of other novels. Every time I picked up this novel, I wished it was over. Please, please, please don’t let this be your first Connelly novel, because with the exception of this novel, Michael Connelly is the best crime writer in America. I can’t imagine how this endeavor went so terribly wrong.

How to Enjoy Writing: A Book of Aid and Comfort by Janet and Isaac Asimov

How to Enjoy Writing: A Book of Aid and Comfort by Janet and Isaac Asimov

If you’re looking for a book to help lift your writing to new heights, this is NOT it. However, if you enjoy writing and enjoy reading about writers and their opinions about the writing process and why writing matters, this little book might very well delight you as it did me.

The Blank Notebook

by Keith Badowski

This article originally appeared in the Georgia Poetry Society newsletter, Spring 2009.

Prior to my passion for poetry, it was comics—first Charlie Brown and then Spider-Man. I practiced drawing Snoopy as one continuous contour line, lifting the pen only when his leg met his distended belly, so I could darken his teardrop ear with scribbles and draw on his collar.

In childhood, I lost track of so many things: how many times I copied Charles Schultz, how many times I scanned the stationary isle while my parents shopped for groceries. How magnetized I was to the tablet of unlined paper and filled with the anticipation of comic strips I would draw, copying the Sunday comics in pencil, cramming in the speech and thought balloons, carefully putting the printed words inside, tracing overtop it all in black ballpoint ink. When Mom would agree to place the tablet of paper in the shopping cart, she’d make me promise to use it all up, every page, before asking for another. Most likely she knew I’d never use the entirety of any tablet I’d been granted.

Yes, as my wife knows, it’s the same story today; I buy a new notebook—a book of blankness, bursting with the untapped energy of potential: a novel might finally get written or a sequence of sonnets to put the Bard to shame, or the creation of an iconic character, the likes of Spider-Man or Sherlock Holmes.

I own four-hundred and forty notebooks, all of which have been written in, but still include some or even many blank pages. I have never completed a novel and never written a single sonnet with which I’ve been completely satisfied. Yet I bought this new notebook on which I am writing with the antsy hope that the freezer-box of my head might defrost, that the blank yet lined pages might absorb some words for me.

This notebook actually sat untouched in my junk mail pile in the kitchen for a week. Its red cover taunted me, as if to say, ‘Stop! Write, if you can.’ But none of it worked even though I’d felt that same childhood excitement in the checkout line, that inner mantra of ‘My notebook, mine! My notebook, mine!’ as I carried it to my car.

Late one night, while in bed, the notebook out of sight but yet in mind, I told my wife that it’s been ages since I’ve written anything, “My creativity has dried up.” In the dark, I heard her say, “Why don’t you go out and treat yourself to a brand new notebook, a fresh start.”

I snuggled up right against her and wrapped my arms around her and told her how much I loved her and how sweet it was that she would say that, especially when in our office there are so many unfinished notebooks. I confessed too that I’d already splurged on such a purchase, that this red notebook, lay awaiting my pen and how no new writing had yet occurred. I confessed that I’d wasted an hour in the morning on checking email and browsing the web for TV and movie gossip. And I told her of the boy I’d once been who had rejoiced at the fresh blank tablet, what a thrill it had been to receive that collection of potential.

The conversation between me and my wife happened last night, and my heart is still full from my wife’s generous suggestion. Sure, a notebook costs so little, but it seems extravagance when you’ve got shelves full in the other room. I’m grateful for her blessing upon my creative endeavor, even though she categorizes most of what I write as ‘so weird.’ This time it took her love to loose these words, to bless the moving of my pen. Her love ignited this—what I have written this morning.

Book in Brief: Out Here (2008) by Ginger Murchison

Review by Keith Badowski

Ginger Murchison’s first collection of poems, Out Here, from Jeanne Duval Editions, provided me with hours of delighted reading and re-reading as I carefully took note of the focused voice of each poem and the attention to concrete details that make for vibrant writing.

The 27 poems presented here are all incredibly tight creations, not a one spanning more than a page in length. Murchison proves herself to be a meticulous crafter of language, allowing only the words that are needed for the poem, nothing more, nothing less. But that doesn’t mean she skimps on the delights of poetic devices.

The title poem “Out Here” with its attention to recurring sounds and energetic use of personification, takes the reader on a naturalistic journey from regret to renewal. There’s a strong sonic thread of repeated ‘m’ sounds: me, remembers, minimal, monumental, mistakes, and moldering. And this lovely alliterative line: ‘rich with the rot of river . . .’ Through personification the naturalistic scene takes on personality and human significance. The shadows want, the headwaters think, the roots can’t see, and the wind tries to look busy. Although the tone starts out in gloomy disappointment, the poem ends with a playful sense of optimism and refreshment.

Another example of Murchison’s charms is the vivid details of “Croagh Patrick” which deals with the pressures of a Catholic upbringing. The speaker sarcastically refers to the “debt I owed for being born” and how Father Thomas told her “the biggest room/in the world was the room for improvement.” I smiled in sympathy as the poem opened up the scene. My inner-eye was held by the details of Dad’s pajamas, the Big Chief tablet of paper and the smudge on a page, and, best of all, her description of the stance for ironing: ‘that tip-toed, breath-holding/ whole-body pose, the kind you see applied in the high jump . . .’ Obviously, humor is a big component of Murchison’s voice.

If you long for a poetry volume that will engage your ear, your mind, your senses, and your funny bone, Out Here by Ginger Murchison is not to be missed!

Book Review: Paper Cathedrals (2001) by Morri Creech

Since my undergraduate college days, I’ve been enamored by intersections between art/literature and Christianity. It’s especially powerful when, whatever the medium, the artist/writer avoids being preachy or maudlin and succeeds in engaging Christian motifs in a strikingly thought provoking way. In Morri Creech’s poetry collection Paper Cathedrals, I discovered exactly that kind of stimulating engagement with biblical materials.

In “Honey and John the Baptist,” Creech imagines an internal monologue for John the Baptist. John has completed his preordained purpose of preparing the way for Lord and simply waits in a state of purposelessness:

. . . the crowds had gone,
what work was I left to do,
having set it all in motion, . . .

No longer the chosen . . .

Creech’s poems often probe those afterward and in-between moments of New Testament events, the Bible’s “deleted scenes.” These are shown to be moments of weakness, sorrow, and/or regrets.

In his impotency, John the Baptist reflects not only on his own coming death, but also on the temptations and coming death of Jesus:

And weren’t the long beams of the cross
already hewn from the tree,
Salome’s young thighs
ripening toward the dance
as I ate of the honey,
as I tasted the scald of bees
drowned in the chambered sweetness
of their own making?

Not all the poems here are biblically based. Several are responses to photographs and a few seem to be familial poems. However, the most stirring and even somewhat disturbing poems are those written from the point of view of Judas, the betrayer.

Creech’s poems give us a hugely sympathetic Judas, a disciple in love with his master, devoted, and intimately a part of the inner circle. Vividly the poems retell familiar scenes which are made new through showing them from Judas’ point of view alone. There’s an added dimension of pain when we know in advance that the speaker is headed toward betrayal and destruction.

Without a doubt, the most striking poem of the collection is one entitled, “The Room Reserved for Judas” where Creech imagines in acute detail the living quarters that were set aside for Judas in heaven but were never claimed.

There are no pictures arranged
on the mantelpiece, no flowers pressed
in the pages of the a family Bible. The door
remains numberless. . .

Yet even there, in the far corner of the kingdom,
one can still hear God’s loud voice
and the trumpets of mercy . . .

As the heavenly sounds penetrate this empty room, the poem conveys a haunting sadness of loss and disappointment. One of God’s children, chosen by Jesus to be his disciple has fallen away. He will never come into his inheritance. It’s a chilling poem.

Paper Cathedrals is an astounding collection.

Book Review: Barnstomer in Oz (1982) by Philip Jose Farmer

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a World War I veteran accidentally found himself in the land of Oz just as Oz was entering a major war itself? I doubt you ever have, but if you had this book (set in 1923) answers that question with much bloody gusto. In addition to the quite unexpected violence, there’s decidedly adult sexual situations as well, establishing this Oz book as “for grown-ups only.”

The main character, war veteran and pilot, Hank Stover is the son of Dorothy. He knows of Oz through his mother’s stories and the books of L. Frank Baum. But we quickly learn that Baum took liberties with the story he was told by young Dorothy and that all the books following the Wizard of Oz were entirely fabricated from Baum’s imagination. Through Hank, Farmer takes the pose that he is giving us the ‘real’ Oz, including speculations on how Oz and our Earth were once linked.

There’s the suggestion that much like the land bridge that once connected Asia to Alaska, allowing people to walk across to the yet to be called ‘new world’, humans and animals from our world crossed over to Oz and were forever changed.

Hank is also shown to be philosophical about how inanimate forms could take on life. Where did the ‘life’ come from? How does it sustain itself in the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodsman?

What was the thing that made the Scarecrow a living continuum? He believed that there was something that made up the Scarecrow and which inhabited his clothes, boots, and head-sack. Was it some kind of energy configuration? A tightly contained invisible complex of electromagnetism? Or some other kind of energy? A combination of e.m. energy and some unknown energy? (85)

Overall, I found this book to be a swift, adventure filled read. The familiar characters were re-made in fresh and surprising ways, particularly Glinda, and the new characters were oddly fascinating. I especially enjoyed the conflict between isolationistic Glinda and the colonistic U.S. government. In particular, I found her mystical attack and assassination of President Harding to be weirdly imaginative and captivating.

My only complaint is that the last quarter of the book felt awfully rushed. In the “Author’s Notes,” Farmer mentions cuts he had to make due to length considerations. I wasn’t surprised to learn of this. It felt as if scenes were missing or deleted, and the pace gave the impression of huge time gaps in the narrative. If Farmer’s original intentions had been included, I’m sure this book would’ve benefited. Maybe I just didn’t want it to end so soon.

Book Review: Bridge of Sighs (2007) by Richard Russo

The most important reason I’d recommend Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo is that it’s one of those novels where the characters seem utterly real. You will come away with the feeling of being a part of their families, their town, and their environments. The novel creates the illusion of having known the characters in the flesh, that the plot of the novel is a set of memories from a past actually shared, actually experienced.

Bridge of Sighs is an expansive novel that sprawls outward and outward from a nexus of two boyhood friends, Lou “Lucy” Lynch and Bobby Marconi. Russo uses a variety of narrative techniques to provide the reader with an intimate experience of the lives, families, friends, and acquaintances of both Lucy and Bobby, and Russo generously does the same for many of the “supporting” characters whose lives are intertwined with those of the Lynch’s and Marconi’s.

The novel starts out with 60 year old Lou “Lucy” Lynch writing his childhood memoir as he strives to preserve his past, an impulse that defines the core of this character: his love of family and of Thomaston (the small town he’s never left), his desire for things to remain unchanged, and his unwavering faithfulness to his father’s corner grocery business and his father’s legacy of hopeful optimism. There are shifts from the pages of Lucy’s memoir to his first-person present-tense stream of consciousness which allows Lucy to reveal how things have changed since his childhood, where people are “now”, and the state of his current life. In other sections written in 3rd person point of view, Noonan (a.k.a. Bobby Marconi) and, later, Sarah (Berg) Lynch become the focal points. They too are given opportunity to dwell on their youth and to reflect on who they’ve become in the present.

The Lynch family is revealed as eminently lovable, even though Lucy’s parents “Big” Lou and Tessa never seem entirely on the same page when it come to ideology or temperament. Tessa is tough as nails, practical, and a realist. Whereas Lou is a big softy, always hoping for the best from the world and from others and consistently optimistic while wearing a goofy grin. They are often at odds in their approach when it comes to their neighbors, the Marconi family.

The Marconis are introduced as a secretive family led by an impenetrable patriarch. Bobby is typically not allowed to leave the house after school, to the constant disappointment and longing of his friend Lucy. Mrs. Marconi also seems to be on a short leash, having to conduct her friendship with Tessa Lynch only in the hours while the men are at work and children are at school. The Marconis give off the impression they wish to keep the entire world away, farther than at arms length.

In Bridge of Sighs’ 528 pages, Russo consistently keep the reader in a state of questioning. Will Lucy ever out grow of his neediness where it came to his friendship with Bobby? Although Sarah and Lucy are married in the present, is there a deep dark secret between Sarah and Bobby? Will Bobby and his father come to blows? Will Sarah’s eccentric, school teacher, father finish his novel and win back his ex-wife? Will Lucy and Sarah actually hear back from Bobby, now a famous painter in Venice, before their trip to Italy? A new question is raised on nearly every page. Some are answered quickly, within a few pages. Others are not resolved until hundreds of pages later. As in life, some questions remain unanswered. However, most of the big questions are resolved in a believable and satisfactory way.

One of the most artistically gratifying aspects of the novel is the lovely symmetries between the experiences and actions of the characters. For instance, Sarah’s choice between “bad boy” Bobby and “good boy” Lucy is paralleled by Tessa’s choice a generation earlier between Dec and Lou. Both Sarah and Tessa are the objects of a cross-racial attraction with significant consequences. Another such comparison can be made between Noonan’s painting of his father and Lucy’s memoir; both men at 60 are reflecting on the days of youth and what made them the men they are today. Also there’s the similarity between Sarah’s painting of the Bridge of Sighs and the appearance of the Bridge of Sighs in the background of Noonan’s painting of his father. To mention only one more, there are the unlikely friendships that cross the divide between race and economic class, Lucy and Gabriel as well as Sarah and Miss Rosa. Many more such comparisons are made throughout the novel, creating pattern of reverberations and echoes that enhance the reader’s experience of understanding how each generation faces many of the same challenges and share many of the same epiphanies.

“The Word ‘Passion’ Comes to Mind in Excess of Five Times”

by Keith Badowski

As I step into the role of President of Georgia Poetry Society, I feel I should introduce myself and offer a few words about my passion for our organization. The introduction first:

I was born and grew-up in New York State. In 1994, I moved to Athens, Georgia. I’m forty years old now and have been writing poetry for over twenty years. I dearly love my wife Christina. We currently live in Phenix City, Alabama where I am the Assistant to the Pastor at our local Methodist church. Both my bachelors and masters degrees are in English Literature. My poems are published or forthcoming in Oxalis, Monkey, The Reach of Song, Rambunctious Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, and FutureCycle Poetry. For me, the performance of poetry aloud is as important as the written page—which explains the hundreds of poetry readings I’ve participated in over the years. I’m also a big enthusiast about revision and being in community with fellow poets, motivating my active participation in the local poetry workshops in Columbus, GA. These are focused gatherings where poets give each other feedback and suggestions for improving their poems. (If you don’t have a poetry workshop near you, I urge you to start one; it may do wonders for your writing!)

Now let’s move on to my passion for our organization. My relationship with the Georgia Poetry Society (GPS) began back in 1997 when I made my way to one of the quarterly meetings in Atlanta. I remember the warm reception I received and how I was urged to read a poem in the “Member Readings” section of the program. How I enjoyed hearing so many different voices and such a variety of styles of poetry. It impressed me to see such an encouraging spirit among the members of the group. I felt as if I were “home.”

Since that first meeting, I have served as webmaster, newsletter editor, publicist, and board member for the Georgia Poetry Society. I urge and encourage all of you to volunteer to help with some aspect of GPS. We are a non-profit organization, driven by our passion for poetry and relying entirely on volunteer power. In other words, your creativity and passion is needed!

Over the years, my experiences at the society meetings have only enhanced the sense of value I find in GPS membership. My favorite thing about GPS is the camaraderie among poets—all of us giving each other energy and encouragement to write our visions, to revise and craft our writing, and to send it out to the world, entering contests or submitting it for publication. In addition, we get to hear some fabulous featured poets, the likes of Beth Gylys, John Stone or Thomas Lux—contemporary poets of the highest quality. Through our chapbook competition, we participate in “discovering” poets who, as is often the case, have been diligently honing their craft over the years while we were unawares. From time to time, we hear extraordinary lectures on poets or poetry, encouraging our journey in learning more about our craft. And who could forget the inspiration (and fun) we get from participating in our frequent poetry workshops? (It’s great to hear the spontaneous results and more than once I’ve come away with a workable poem.) Not to mention the plethora of contests and the chance at getting published in The Reach of Song. (Why not mention them? Well, most folks mention those things first, so I chose to be contrary!)

I see my job as president to be the passionate keeper of the flame that is GPS, aiming to encourage all of you to attend as many quarterly meetings as possible and to participate as fully as possible in all GPS activities. As we grow together in our craft together, I’m sure we’ll influence each other to greater heights!

Poem Publications

I’m excited to announce two recent publication acceptances. My “spontaneous” poem “Dream Theory,” prompted by some random words submitted by Todd Stiles, has been accepted at Birmingham Arts Journal and is slated for publication in the April 2009 issue. Another poem “Pursuit of the Sweet Spot” is currently available for your reading pleasure on the FutureCycle Poetry website. Later in the year (round about November) FutureCycle will produce a print anthology that will include this poem and all the other poems appearing on their website in the past year. My poem can be found at http://www.futurecycle.org/BadkowskiBio.aspx. Drop me a line and let me know what you think!

Book Review: Lines & Shadows by Joseph Wambaugh

Lines and Shadows by Joseph Wambaugh depicts the results of a real-life law-enforcement experiment that was conceived of by Dick Snider, an officer with the San Diego police department. Snider had a deep sympathy for the illegal immigrants crossing over from Mexico through the canyons on the border. Snider was well aware that these illegals were being attacked, robbed, beaten, raped, and abused by Mexican bandits who ambushed them in the dark, treacherous canyons. The boarder patrol was only interested in arresting boarder crossers, not protecting them or policing the canyons where visibility was nearly nil at night. Snider launched a one-man media campaign to raise awareness of the horrors experienced by these illegal immigrants. Somehow, against all odds, he convinced the media, the public, and (most remarkably) the Chief of Police that a task force was needed to protect the poor, suffering immigrants from the bandits in the canyons. Thus a San Diego police task force (The Board Crime Task Force) made up of mostly officers of Mexican decent, a rarity in the force, was formed.

Wambaugh reveals in the opening lines of the book that this experimental task force had a detrimental effect on the psyches of the officers who were assigned. We learn right off that three members of the team needed psychological counseling in the years that followed. Step by step we learn that their initiative of stopping the bandits in the canyons was much more like warfare in Vietnam than any ordinary (i.e. safe, normal) police work in San Diego. Over the course of the book the reader is privy to the gradual erosion of each officer’s sanity as the job gets more and more dangerous. The marriages of a few of the officers hang by a thread, not only because of the physical risks, but also due to the drinking and carousing the cops indulge in as a sort of celebration of another day of survival. Acclaim and notoriety go to their heads, as reporters and groupies swarm around them, as they are held up for public consumption as the last of the mythic gunslingers. If only their fans had the inside view that the reader is afforded, that their busts were typically characterized by bungling to such an extent that it was a miracle that they survived to reach the bar that night. Wambaugh makes it clear that each man had his own personal demons driving him to make this task force work and that each man displayed extraordinary bravery by taking on this work in the first place. However, as things got worse and worse, it’s almost funny how awful their performance as team really was. For instance, two of the cops were shot by their own team members. Also they clashed repeatedly with their counterparts on the Mexican side of the boarder and with the US boarder patrol. The reader is left with the impression that the canyons were an untenable disaster and that in some ways the cops amplified the messiness of an already messy situation.

One cop especially stands out from the team, Manny Lopez, the obvious leader and spokesperson. What’s memorable about Manny is his unflinching egotism about the job. Manny consistently laid aside caution and went in with guns blazing. The other cops came to regard him as a bit mad, or at the very least a very lucky psychopath and spotlight hog. There are several instances when the members of the team shake their heads in wonder that Manny didn’t get himself killed, that he didn’t get them all killed. Wambaugh leaves the reader with a vivid visual impression of Manny too: his extraordinarily expressive eyebrow that craws up his head when he’s confronted or challenged, his John Travolta suit right out of Saturday Night Fever, his swagger, and his intimidating presence. Each officer on the team is vividly realized by Wambaugh, but Manny’s charisma and insanity is depicted with special flare.

Wambaugh’s style might be thought by some as heavy handed and a bit manipulative. Yet I found the foreshadowing at the beginning of each chapter to be quite successful, mainly because I knew the content was reportage of real events. Wambaugh’s storytelling strategy is to hint, warn, and prophecy that things are going to get worse, marriages will pay a price, officers will become paranoid of each other, someone will get shot, things will be as awful as the nightmares the officers were starting to have, and ultimately the myth of the gunslingers will not hold up to the scrutiny of reality. Wambaugh also effectively uses refrains of quotations to carry themes through out the book. The reader is invited to share in the code words used by the cops and mottoes they told themselves to keep themselves going. There is a feel of ritual to the book as a whole.

Reading Lines and Shadows by Joseph Wambaugh put me inside the skin of ten cops who experienced the essence of fear and the poison of celebrity. This was the first Wambaugh book I’ve read; it’s also a rarity for me in that it is a true story. Apparently Wambaugh is well revered for producing non-fiction that reads like a novel, and although I’m a bit late jumping on that bandwagon, I wholeheartedly agree with that reverence. Lines and Shadows is suspenseful as any thriller and these real cops are equally as empathetic as any made-up characters in a novel. The book is eloquent, literary, and grants the reader a look inside the heads of all those involved in this unprecedented experiment in law enforcement.

Heartburn

At Under the Boardwalk in Eufaula, AL where I eat a polish sausage topped with onions and peppers, a vampiric flamingo with spiked feathers stands posed on one bony and impenetrable leg in ripples of molten lava and glares hideously at the swaying palms in the shadow of an erupting volcano.

An Odd Sentence from the Pen of Keith Badowski

Each person dealing out castigation was carefully screened by a panel of big-tent clowns and varsity football mascots to make sure that no merciless hecklers were granted a federal license and issued fully loaded cream pies in error.

Anne Sexton on Letting Out 'Some Extraordinary Animals'

Patricia Marx asks Anne Sexton what she means when she says, "The form is always important."

PM: Do you mean by form just the physical look of the poem?

Anne Sexton: Yes, sometimes, but also the sound. But I think of it as something you can hold. I think of it with my hands to begin with. I don’t know what the poem will be and I start out writing and it looks wrong. I start a long line and that looks wrong, and a short line, and I play around with rhyme, and then I sometimes make a kind of impossible syllabic count, and if I can get the first verse and it’s right, then I might keep on with that for four more verses, and then I might change it because I felt that it needed a new rhythm. It has as much to do with speech as it does with the way it will look on the page, because it will change speech—it’s a kind of compression. I used to describe it this way; that if you used form it was like letting a lot of wild animals out in the arena, but enclosing them in a cage, and you could let some extraordinary animals out if you had the right cage, and that cage would be form.

from “Interview with Anne Sexton” (1965)by Patricia Marx in Anne Sexton: The Artist and Her Critics edited by J.D. McClatchy (1978)

Anne Sexton seems to be saying that by using formal structure in poetry, the poet is liberated in terms of content. Sexton, at least, found form to be freeing instead of limiting. One way this might be characterized is that the form occupied the logical part of the brain, allowing the creative side to sneak out and go wild. --Keith Badowski

New Paltz Alumni Poetry Reading

Anne Gorrick reading at the SUNY New Paltz Alumni Poetry Reading on Thursday, December 4th, 2008. Anne gives a delightful reading and the music goes wonderfully with it. I don't know Anne, but I did graduate from New Paltz many years ago. The aura reminds me (fondly) of those days. Perhaps someday they'll invite me!

Poetry and Writing Stunts

If you’ve read my blog before, you know I’m a sucker for writing stunts, such as the “spontaneous poems” I did for awhile. (By the way, I fully intend to get back to that stunt one day very soon—so keep tuned in!)

Anyway, I found my way to the website of René Battelle, who has explored several varieties of writing stunts.
See: http://afternoontea.250free.com/SpecialEvents/EventsFrontpage.html
Main Page: http://afternoontea.250free.com/

The following Writing Stunt ideas are inspired by René Battelle’s projects. In several instances, I’ve slightly modified what she describes on her website. Whatever the case, the credit goes to her for the inspiration.

Poem-a-day challenge—It’s self explanatory isn’t it? Write a poem every day for one month, any style, any length. (I’ve also heard of other poets doing this for an entire year, but that would be a Herculean feat!)

Stanza-a-day challenge--Write a four-line stanza for each day of the month, then post the entire poem for the 30th. The only real rule is that you are not allowed to look at the previous stanzas while you move forward with the poem. You can't look at any of them until the entire thing is done.

24-Hour Surrealist Poetry Marathon!--Produce one poem, written during that day sometime, that is no less than 10 lines long. Then the fun begins! All night, from 6:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m., produce at least one poem per hour. There are no form or line restrictions for those hours, and since you’re awake all night it could get weird, which is where the Surrealist bit comes in!

Midnight Madness—For one week (or month if you can stand it), write a poem every night at midnight. Wake yourself up from a dead sleep (if necessary), and give yourself a mere hour to compose, edit, and post a lovely piece of verse for general consumption.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words--See if you can produce a thousand words for a picture. . . . All right, maybe not a thousand, but how about as many as you can? The challenge is to produce poems and/or stories from pictures in magazines or any other source of photography.

Ten Hour Shower—For ten hours, 8:00 p.m. -- 6:00 a.m., write a poem an hour, two if possible. Start out writing in your bathtub or shower stall. From there move to other unusual writing locations as needed, such as under the kitchen table or with your feet in the fireplace.

Poetry Duel—Find a fellow poet with a strong constitution and challenge him or her to a poetry duel. Go back and forth each day and write poems in response to each other's poems. See if you can keep it up for an entire month.

Morning Minute—For one month, every morning, within minutes of opening your eyes from sleep, taking no more than a minute (but less, if it happens) to write everything you’re thinking.

Denis Leary, Poetry Fan?

I've noticed that there are crossroads in various places between stand-up comedy and poetry. I've come across a number of poets who when they read their poems attempt to crack up their audience with their wit and delivery. Poets like Billy Collins and Thomas Lux weave humor into their poetry like it's the most natural thing in the world. My friend Ron Self, Columbus, GA attorney and poet, has this flare for comedy in his poems. Another friend of mine, stand-up comic, Joe Bronzi used to write brilliant poems; he still writes incredible dialogue in his scripts. As far as I can tell, poetry and stand-up comedy go well together. Both arts are language driven. Word choice, rhythm and style of diction have everything to do with it. You must love language to be good at either craft. So I wasn't too shocked to read in a recent interview published in the Chicago Tribune that, actor/comedian, Denis Leary is an avid poetry reader.

Q:So when you put your book on your bookshelf, what else is there?

Denis Leary:I've always been a fan of poetry. People may be surprised by that. Early in college [Emerson College in Boston], I had a huge crush on this poetry teacher ... that probably helped.

And also a plethora of sports books and history books, biographies. Any book about the Boston Red Sox, any baseball writing—it's the most prosaic thing in the world. I like Hemingway. But if there was a Hemingway book and the Robert Creamer book on Babe Ruth—I've read that book about three or four times—that's the one I'm going to pick up.

Q:What poetry's on your shelf?

Denis Leary:Tom Lux and [former U.S. Poet Laureate] Charles Simic and Bill Knott. Tom Lux and Bill Knott taught at Emerson College. I'm not really a classical guy because I grew up in the city. I actually don't get Shakespeare. I would never be able to perform Shakespeare. Scorsese's films "Taxi Driver" and "Mean Streets"—that's the first time I saw guys in the movies who I felt like I grew up with them. That's like my Shakespeare.

Q:As a college student, you had two poems published in the distinguished poetry magazine Ploughshares [published by Emerson College]. Does it help your comedy writing that you once wrote poetry?

Denis Leary:It's the rhythm of it. I just learned this whole thing about rhythm, listening to these teachers talk about it.

For the entire article http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-denis-leary-1208dec08,0,6606675.story

History Among the Rocks by Robert Penn Warren

The reader of this Robert Penn Warren poem has a hypnotic voice. I'm impressed by the reading and the poem itself. Click play, lean back in your chair and treat yourself.

Apes Invade London

Den of Geek posted this picture and several others. I just love seeing these Apes roaming around London. In this picture, I love the fact that just as always the subway riders seem to be ignoring everything going on around them! The other pictures are well worth a look if you're an old time Ape fan like me. As a kid, I'd watch those Planet of the Apes movies every time they aired on television. One of my fondest memories is of viewing Battle for the Planet of the Apes in a drive-in with my family. It was a double feature with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. There is a rumor going around that there will be another Planet of the Apes movie, despite the lack of enthusiasm around the Tim Burton outing. I'd be curious to see another take on the concepts of the old films. However, if I'm honest with myself . . . those old films live best in my memory and will never be topped or replaced by any "reimagining".

Dennis Lehane on The Given Day (novel)

You can watch this video for free at Amazon.com.  
Video:       Dennis Lehane on "The Given Day"  
Comment:     Here's a rare thing--an author interview where the novelist clearly shares his logic in constructing plot and character. Also comments on the gift of those characters that just "show up". Lehane is unquestionably one of my most admired novelists. --Keith Badowski

Watch this video at http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/mB850HYHBAVZY