Dean and I sat out in the park across the street for about half an hour last night, but it was too cloudy to see anything. Damn this summer weather!

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They are doing construction on I-5 for the next two weeks, shoring up the bridges and viaducts and elevated parts south of downtown (image of bridge collapse in Minneapolis here). There will be only two lanes open (out of 4-5 usually in use). Commuting is going to be a f***ing nightmare. Thank god I don't have to get on I-5 to go to work, but I may get spill-over. One of the detours uses the West Seattle viaduct to Fourth Ave S. We'll see.

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Reminder: Never reach for a falling knife.

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Spectacular Show in the Sky Tonight

This year the new moon of August comes on Sunday, the 12th, perfectly timed to bring dark, moonless nights around the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Moreover, Earth should pass through the shower's richest part around 1AM ET on August 13th -- so North Americans and western Europeans should have the best seats in the house.

Dean and I are going to sit out back on the deck, and have a glass of wine, and watch for falling stars tonight. Sound romantic?

(I know, they are not stars, but stardust, meteoroids to be exact, but falling stars sounds better to the poet in me).

From yesterday's Poetry Daily, this amazing found/list/abecedarian/political poem. It's fascinating, really. Why no antlers in Azerbaijan? No almanacs in Denmark, no umbrellas in Brazil? And in Iraq: no binoculars allowed, while in Iran it's no fashion magazines. Peru wants no underwear or communist propaganda. Sri Lanka wants no volleyballs, while Vatican City refuses live animals or human remains (interesting combo). It's by Deborah Golub, and originally appeared in jubilat Number 13.

Entry Forbidden
[Selections from the International Mail Manual, "Country
Conditions for Mailing," May 2005, U.S. Postal Service]

ALBANIA
Extravagant clothes and other articles contrary to Albanians' taste.
Items sent by political emigres.

ALGERIA
Funeral urns.
Saccharine.

AZERBAIJAN
Cutting and stabbing arms, knuckledusters, stiletto blades, balls of
paralyzing fluid.
Antlers, and the horns of the species Cervidae.

BAHAMAS
Radioactive materials.
Skimmed milk in tins.

BANGLADESH
Quinine, colored pink.

BELARUS
Metallized yarn made with or made of gold thread.
Opium.

BOTSWANA
Honey and preparations of honey including royal jelly, preserves
sweetened with honey, and flypaper.
Prison-made goods.

BRAZIL
Cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars.
Umbrellas, or any other articles containing swords, daggers, or guns.
Primary educational books not written in Portuguese.

BULGARIA
"Musical" cards (cards that play a sound recording when opened).

BURMA (MYANMAR)
All goods manufactured outside Her Majesty's dominions and bearing
the British Royal Arms or imitations thereof; or bearing as a mark
or label a portrait of any member of the Royal Family of England.
Toy pistols.

CANADA
An issue of a publication that contains an advertisement primarily
directed to a Canadian market is a prohibited import if that
advertisement does not appear in identical form in all editions of the
issue distributed in the country of origin.
Secondhand hives.

COSTA RICA
Dual-graduation feeding bottles.

DENMARK
Almanacs (except for single copies) that do not bear the university
almanac stamp.
Fine-cut tobacco in small packages to which cigarette papers are
attached.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Books addressed to bookshops in care of banking institutions.

ECUADOR
All maps showing the territory of Ecuador with incorrect boundaries.
So-called "Panama" hats.
Bits and mouthpieces made of copper.

GERMANY
Absinthe.
Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.
Melatonin.
Playing cards, except in complete decks properly wrapped.
Pulverized coca beans.

GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Horror comics and matrices.

GUATEMALA
Gardenia plants and seeds.
Police whistles.

GUYANA
Bees.

ICELAND
Sausages.
Toys made of lead.

INDIA
Arms and military equipment, except for the Indian government.

IRAN
Fashion newspapers.

IRAQ
Binoculars.

IRELAND (EIRE)
Peat moss litter except under license.

ITALY
Artificial flowers.
Bells.
Bonnets.
Chloroform.
Hair.
Leeches.
Ribbons for typewriters.

ISRAEL
Games of chance.
Soil and sand.

JORDAN
Advertisements concerning treatment of venereal diseases or medicinal
preparations intended to serve as preventatives against those
diseases.

KAZAKHSTAN
Deer hooves.
Nuclear materials.

LEBANON
Artificial butters.

LESOTHO
Eau de cologne.
Military uniforms.
Printed matter relating to football pools.

LIECHTENSTEIN
Mini-spies (miniature wireless transmitters).

LUXEMBOURG
Postcards embellished with fabrics, embroidery, spangles, except in
sealed envelopes.

MALAWI
Aphrodisiacs.
Correspondence concerning fortune telling.

MALAYSIA
Harpoons.

MALDIVES
Gunpowder.
Weapons of war.
Intoxicants.
Poisons.
Nitrates.
Pork.
Statues used for worship.
Pornographic material.

PAKISTAN
Arms, ammunition except when sent on behalf of the government.

PANAMA
Pastries.

PARAGUAY
Tomato juices.
Socks except those made of jersey.

PERU
Underwear.
Communist propaganda.
Contraceptive products.
Dolls.
Waxes and creams for shoes.

SAN MARINO
Albums of any kind (of photographs, postcards, postage stamps, etc.).

ST. LUCIA
Shaving brushes made in Japan.

SLOVAK REPUBLIC (SLOVAKIA)
Chain letter items.
Sheets of music, etc., contrary to the State public order.

SRI LANKA
Volleyballs.

VATICAN CITY
Human remains.
Live animals.

VIETNAM
Invisible ink, codes, ciphers, symbols or other types of secret
correspondence, and shorthand notes.
Used mosquito nets.

"I, come what may, will not be silenced.
Come what may, I will continue my fight for equality and justice without any compromise until my death."

Taslima Nasreen, Poet, Attacked in India: Men Attack Her; Other Men Try to Sheild Her. Read full article here.

"Matinee" from ALP 124

There are many ways to react to a bad diagnosis, or bad news. I like the one described in this poem by Patrick Phillips, which is featured in this week's American Life in Poetry.


Matinee

After the biopsy,
after the bone scan,
after the consult and the crying,

for a few hours no one could find them,
not even my sister,
because it turns out

they'd gone to the movies.
Something tragic was playing,
something epic,

and so they went to the comedy
with their popcorn
and their cokes,

the old wife whispering everything twice,
the old husband
cupping a palm to his ear,

as the late sun lit up an orchard
behind the strip mall,
and they sat in the dark holding hands.


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Congratulations John!

Seattle poet J.W. Marshall is the 2007 winner of the prestigious Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College.

Marshall, 55, will receive $1,000 as well as publication of his first full-length collection. Oberlin University Press has scheduled March for release of his volume, titled "Meaning a Cloud."

Word of the award arrived the day after his longtime dog, Sandy, died. "There were a lot of emotions those two days," Marshall said, co-proprietor of Open Books, the poetry-only bookstore in Wallingford, with his wife and fellow poet, Christine Deavel.

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This is wonderful news, and well-deserved. (Though so sad about the dog!)

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Your Poetry Radio

Listen to Kathleen Flenniken read "Lost Coat, Pls Call," "Elisabeth Reads Poetry," and "What I Saw," from her Prairie Schooner Prize-winning book Famous, and then to KUOW/NPR hosts Megan Sukys and Elizabeth Austen discuss the poems here. (Her segment begins at the 2:07 minute mark.)

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Or listen to Wedding/Marriage poems here. The segment begins at the 2:05 minute mark.

"The wedding ceremony is one of the few modern rituals that touch all of us at some point, whether as participant or as witness. It's also one of the rare moments when poetry is pressed into service for a public gathering. Today, three western Washington poets bring us poems written for that very public, deeply personal ritual: the wedding. Jim Bertolino, author of nine collections of poetry, reads "A Wedding Toast". Susan Rich, author of The Cartographer's Tongue and Cures Include Travel reads "Navigating Delight". Dana Elkun, a poet and dancer who teaches in the Writers in the Schools program, reads "Possibilities for a Wedding Poem"." (from the KUOW/NPR archives).

Methinks Sarkozy Doth Protest Too Much?

French President Yells at Photographers
By BEVERLEY WANG,AP
CONCORD, N.H. (Aug. 6) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost his temper with two American news photographers covering his vacation Sunday, jumping onto their boat and scolding them loudly in French.

I've just gotta say, he is one hot president.

I wouldn't kick him out of *my* boat for eating snails . . . hehehehe

And who is the guy he's with? His *body* guard? Uh-hmmmmm.

High Summer is here. Seafair is underway and the Blue Angels are ripping across the sky, practicing their routines for the show Sunday. (I hate them with a passion: big waste of fuel, and glorifies war). Dean and I finally got the decks re-sealed. In time to have some old friends over for dinner last night. We had a caprese appetizer and a cocktail on the front deck, then we grilled halibut and veggies and sat out on the back deck, then as it was beginning to get dark out we came inside to the dining room for a lovely nectarine pan dowdy (sp?) that J made. I joked that it was a movable feast: we had eaten at three different tables.

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Still trying to find time to work on the novel. I might just have to go away again.

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I think I got a new poem the other day, about cleaning a patient's glasses. We'll see if it pans out.

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I have a poem, "Quad," in the inaugural issue of Hospital Drive, out of the University of Virginia. Poet Arthur Ginsberg and essayist Emily Transue (both of Seattle) are featured as well.

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Prelude and Fugue-o-rama

I've been reading H. L. Hix's Chromatic, which was a finalist for the 2006 NBA, and enjoying it. It has three sections: an opening long-poem called "Remarks on Color;" followed by "Eighteen Maniacs;" and then a third section (which is my favorite part) called "The Well-Tempered Clavier" (after JS Bach, of course). The titles of the 24 poems in this section are all music: "Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C," " . . . No. 2 in C Minor," " . . . No 3. in C Sharp" etc. Each poem has a prose-like paragraph at the top (the prelude?), which explores in a lyric way some idea, emotion, or desire (there is a love relationship gone wrong, or a loss due to death, in some of this, I think). This is followed by an asterisk break, and a second poem that is a series of rhetorical comments or questions, many of them repeated in various permutations, in response or opposition to, or as an investigation of, the previous (the fugue?). I found many of these delightful (but I know nothing about classical music (maybe Rebecca could help here). One of my favorite "fugue" lines: "If not why not if so why" -- I could just turn it over and over in my head for hours like a smooth pebble. Perfect.

Here is a sample:

Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C minor

My cold dark salty desire: schools of krill spilled silver from light to light: whales jailing krill in bubbles before bursting on them from below: invisible algae and plankton suffusing the whole: seaweed waving goodbye goodbye: jellyfish these floating moons morsing your name here where it cannot be spoken: sperm whale fighting squid to the death far below any light: penguins sliding off ice into might as well be: elephant seals swimming deeper than radio signals can sink goodbye goodbye: orcas close to ice cruising for antarctic cod: cephalopods signalling complex codes of color and gesture: crinoids fanning for algae in eerie light beneath the ice: swollen tubeworms swaying over volcanic vents: luminous fish as far below day as stars stay above it: orcas bobbing up to peer across the ice then sending signals with their intricate exhalations.

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he asked me and I said no which was a half-truth
half a truth was all I had all love left me
I am myself a half-truth now whatever I was before
whatever I was when I thought I never lied
before I learned I always had lied to him and to myself
before I learned love itself is only half a truth
before I learned there are no whole truths
nothing that guileful god flaw has not fondled
of our ascertainings our words our bodies
before I knew I didn’t want the truth
not because I couldn’t bear it I can’t bear what I am now
but because the me who thought she was telling the truth
also thought she could be satisfied
and this me can’t bear the half-self love left me
after it asked what it asked and I said no


(pg 43)

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Happy reading . . .

From A Word a Day (one of my favorite sites):

This week's theme: words with double connections.

didymous (DID-uh-muhs) adjective

Occurring in pairs; twin.

[From Greek didymos (twin). Ultimately from the Indo-European root dwo- (two)
that also gave us dual, double, dubious, doubt, diploma, twin, and between.]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"Shakespeare portrays the didymous functionaries as if they were
a unit comprised of two parts."
Peter Usher; Hamlet's Universe; Aventine Press; 2006

WWOTB on NPR

Our local NPR affiliate, KUOW, will feature excerpts of my reading from WHAT’S WRITTEN ON THE BODY (Open Books, March 11) on "The Beat" at 2pm on July 30. It will be archived on the site after the live broadcast. You can go here or here to listen. They actually did some fascinating analysis of the poems. I am in awe.

Enjoy!

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At 2:05 p.m. - Peter Pereira
Primary care physician and self-described Scrabble junkie Peter Pereira reads from his new collection of poetry, What's Written on the Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2007). Today he reads poems that explore how the way we perceive a thing shapes how we experience it. Peter Pereira is a family physician at High Point Community Clinic in West Seattle. His previous books are The Lost Twin and Saying the World. Recorded March 11th, 2007 at Open Books: A Poem Emporium.

Water for our Troops!

from poet Anne Caston:

"Dear friends, colleagues, and acquaintances,
I am writing to tell you that I have just learned from my son (a medic in Iraq, in Baghdad) that there is a shortage of potable water there now: the troops are having to ration water...and there are more troops arriving every day. He works nights and has to sleep days - in a tent that often reaches into the low 100s during the day. While there is probably nothing the current administration can do about the desert heat, I suspect that it does have some ability to get drinking water to the troops. So please, if you are so moved - by your heart or by your conscience - send a letter to the President and ask that he acts immediately to insure that our soldiers have sufficient drinking water.
I am currently begging the local Postmaster to allow us to send bottled water to our son's unit, though the USPS has a policy which prohibits the mailing of liquids. Perhaps if I can convince them that I will ship it in styrofoam coolers, well-taped to avoid leakage, they will allow it. So, if you don't feel comfortable sending a letter to President Bush, perhaps a letter to the Postmaster General would be more amenable for you?
Thank you for your time and attention. Let us pray that "staying the course" doesn't mean our sons and daughters overseas go without drinking water for much longer.

Sincerely,
Anne Caston"

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Happy Birthday you-know-who.

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Dean and I spent about 5 hours pressure-washing the front and back decks yesterday. What back-breaking work! If they dry out enough today we'll reseal them this afternoon. It's a lot of work, but so worth it.

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What I posted on a red state blogger's blog the other day, re a disparaging post about the new Tommy Lee Jones movie "In the Valley of Elah":

You don't have a clue, do you?

This war was wrong. It has ruined the lives of countless Americans and Iraqis and more. And to what end? So Cheney and his crew can get oil revenue. It has done nothing to protect us from terrorism, and has only served to make us more enemies in the world. When will you and your ilk wake up?

I can hardly wait to see this movie. I *heart* Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon. They both have integrity for being a part of this important film.

the comment was subsequently deleted . . . (by me, of course; I'm a chicken flamer)

To Simplify and Enlarge

Annie Dillard was on NPR this morning, talking about her new novel The Maytrees. Apparently it went from 1200 pages down to 200 in the process of revision. She said her primary goal in revision is to "simplify and enlarge." I *love* that idea. How it is important not just to make the story (sentence, poem, paragraph . . .) shorter, but to simultaneously make it bigger, in its impact, its resonance, its universality.


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