When Doctors Become Patients

A fascinating interview over at Critical Mass. From Robert Klitzman's new book, When Doctors Become Patients.

"I always thought I was Ms. Compassionate and listened. Well, I had no idea what these patients went through. My eyes were completely opened."

The Specialist

A patient was waiting nervously in the examination room of a famous specialist.
"So who did you see before coming to me?" asked the specialist.
The patient answered, "My local Family Doc."
"Your Family Doctor?" scoffed the specialist. "What a waste of time! Tell me, what sort of useless advice did he give you?"
"He told me to come and see you."

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Thanks to Brent for the link to this essay by David Graham, in Valparaiso Poetry Review, about "Ultra-Talk" poetry :

To my mind, the freshness of the ultra-talk poem as a category lies in just such quirky generosity of spirit. Such poetry resuscitates the beleaguered concept of accessibility in poetry, demonstrating by example how a poem may entertain without automatically becoming trivial; can move without being maudlin; and can be intelligent without being ponderous . . .

Sounds like a good thing.

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Listen to Pamela and her students read fishbowl poems on NPR radio here. They're "fin-tastic!"

Watch Monday night's McNeil-Lehrer News Hour featuring small press poetry in Seattle. Including footage from Copper Canyon, Floating Bridge, Raven Chronicles, and Open Books. Yowza!

What Makes You Real?

Dean and I saw Lars and the Real Girl at the Harvard Exit last night. We were expecting a light-hearted comedy, but got something much more complicated. Though parts were laugh-out-loud funny, most of the movie was a fairly intense psychological drama and tear-jerker. Fargo meets Pinocchio meets Velveteen Rabbit, if you will.
Lars has suffered a great loss, his mother dying during his birth. Now, at age 27, his sister-in-law is about to have her first baby, and it triggers a kind of delusion, where he purchases a life-size mail order doll named Bianca, to be his girl-friend ("She's from Brazil. I met her on the internet"). What follows is a fascinating story of how his small community (a town somewhere in the frozen Northern Midwest) goes along with his delusion (which is usually the wrong thing to do, from a psychological perspective; as it only feeds the delusion and makes the condition worse) with amazingly healing results for all, and a lot of warm and fuzzy along the way (all those sweaters! all those mittens! all those wipsy snowflakes!).
Along the way Bianca is elected to the school board. And Lars learns to bowl. All in all, it's a good movie. Ryan Gosling is a disheveled marvel as Lars. Patricia Clarkson is wonderful as the family doctor.

Doppleganger?

Imagine... You Changing the World

October 15th: 8:30, 9:15 (Harvest) and 11:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary. Dr. Peter Pereira is an internationally renowned evangelist who has influenced thousands to follow Christ at mass crusades. The founder of Hope for Today Ministries and Director of South Asia for the International Leadership Institute, Dr. Pereira has established over 70 churches in India. He runs the Alpha Home for orphans which he and his wife, Esther established; he has a 'Rag-Pickers' ministry to benefit those living in slums; and his ministry continues to provide tsunami relief on the East Indian coast.

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This was too weird, and funny. Mass crusades? A home for orphans? My wife Esther? It's a parallel universe. A bizarro world.

(What self-googling gets you.)

What I've Been Reading This Week

It just happens to be five books — actually three books and two magazines, but who's counting? (see Paisley Rekdals's hilarious essay about her five-book-a-week poetry diet, and Jeannine's well-measured rant about reading it).

1. The Georgia Review: Including a great review essay by the inimitable Judith Kitchen, about the collected poems volumes of Goldbarth, Philips, Wrigley, McClanahan, Beasley, Zimmer and Engles. A new play by David Wagoner. And this terrific poem from Kevin Prufer (well-placed next to some disturbing photos from the Iraq war):

The Twentieth Century

Kiss its cheek, then smooth its sad, gray hair.
Bring it secret cigarettes. How could they hurt
it anymore? A smoke to staunch the fear
is mercy in the end. The doctors purse

their lips or look away. They occupy their hands
with clipboards. Leave them to their notes. Smile. It's what
the dying want. Not tears, you fool. Nor bland-
eyes sentiment. Truth, neither. Offer it

a light. Tell that joke about Jews, the queer,
the drunken nigger. There you go. It smiles
at that, and so should you. Nothing quells our fears
like comedy, nothing sublimates out ills --

and if it finds no comfort from your visit,
put a pillow to its mouth, and, so, be done with it.

--Kevin Prufer, Georgia Review, Fall 2007

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2. Notes for My Body Double, Paul Guest: Great book, Paul. I love your long wandering meditative stanzas. Congrats!

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3. Nervous System, William Stobb: I've just started this. Love "October with Zoloft Trial Packet." What a hoot.

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4. Time and Materials, Robert Hass: One of my favorite poets. A lot of good stuff here. I am currently taken with the Horace imitations.

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5. Prairie Schooner, Fall 2007: A lot of good poems here. And a review of Robin Becker's Domain of Perfect Affection, written by Ron Slate.

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What *five books* are you reading?

Lego Land

I baby-sat my 23 mos old nephew yesterday afternoon. Thank god for giant legos and "The Good Night Show" on cable TV. Our house is not exactly child-safe. Not at all. So I stacked chairs against the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, put a coffee table in front of the computer desk, spread a large blanket on the floor in the TV room downstairs, dumped his bag of legos on to the floor, tossed in a couple large pillows (is *that* why they are called throw pillows?), and clicked on the TV. Little boy B. was able to occupy himself for about an hour off and on. Then the wandering and climbing commenced. (My sister had warned me: "He's a climber, so you really have to watch him."). After the third time B. tried to climb a chair onto the bookcases, I decided to put one chair out in the middle of the floor, amid the legos. He gleefully climbed up & off & under & over & around & around this old wooden chair for about an hour, while I watched "The Good Night Show." It was like he was in a zone. A chair climbing zone. He even fell off the chair a couple times, but it did not even faze him. After about an hour, when the chair got boring, we climbed the basement stairs and stood at the back screen door and watched the windstorm. He jiggled the door latch over and over trying to open the door (it was locked). Then he pooped his diaper and his mom came home just in time to change it (thank you, Jesus!). He is such a sweet and adorable kid. But I have no idea how a "real" parent can do this day in and day out.

Maz Jobrani - Persians and Arabs

From Elham, my lovely Purrrrr-sian friend and colleague. This is really funny.

A lovely poem by Kathleen Flenniken on American Life in Poetry today.

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Windstorms and rain are forecast for today in Seattle. Batten down the hatches. Huddle in the cellar. Ready the ark.

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Check out the flap over Bill Maher saying: "Show me a man wearing an American flag pin on his lapel, and I'll show you an asshole."

Of course, the Republicans are the party of Mark Foley and the Rev. Ted Haggard and Larry Craig and countless other closeted homosexuals, so their fixation on jewelry is understandable, but still ... the flag is just a symbol. You're getting pissy about a brooch, you drama queens, one that was probably made in China. It's probably leaking poison lead on you right now.

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I am having a lot of fun working on poems for the Frye commission. One of them having to do with "High Heeled Shoes."

POETRY READING (I can't go to this tonight, because Dean and I have dinner plans with friends in the neighborhood. But if you are free, check it out! Waywiser Press is publishing some really fun poetry lately).

Joseph Harrison and Eric McHenry
(introduced by Cody Walker)

Tuesday, Oct. 16 7 p.m. Richard Hugo House
(1634 11th Ave. in Capitol Hill)

Joseph Harrison’s first book, Someone Else’s Name, was published by Waywiser Press in England and Zoo Press in the United States, and was a finalist for the 2005 Poet’s Prize. Harrison is the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His poems have appeared in such publications as the Yale Review, the Antioch Review,the Paris Review, the Kenyon Review and Best American Poetry.

“The poems in this first book are so witty and formally adept, so technically accomplished, that they almost seem to come from another era.” — Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post

Eric McHenry’s first book, Potscrubber Lullabies (Waywiser Press), received the 2007 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. McHenry also writes about poetry for Slate and the New York Times Book Review.

“Potscrubber Lullabies is a most exceptional first book. It demonstrates this young poet's extraordinary command of form: it rhymes relentlessly, slyly, and above all, artfully.” — Robert Wrigley

Tuesday Potpourri

About to leave for the gym. Dean and I try to go together about once a week. It's hard for us to workout together because of our schedules, but also because our idea of a workout is somewhat different. Dean is more slow and methodical and can spend an hour or more at the gym, hardly breaking a sweat. I prefer a short but more intense workout, such as running (rather than walking) on the treadmill, and then going through all the weights in fairly rapid succession, 30 minutes is enough. The thing we agree on is we like to watch either the travel channel or the cooking channel while we are on the treadmill. And that it is best to go out for an espresso and a treat (pain au chocolate, or apricot scone, for instance) after the gym.

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Project Runway starts November 14th, and not a moment too soon! Here's an interesting story about a Seattle contestant (possible spoiler).

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I liked this poem on Slate.

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It's time to plant bulbs. It's a little weird to be thinking of Spring right now. But still.

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I've been reading a book of Flash Fiction. My oh my some of these stories are amazing. Have you heard of this Flash Fiction contest? 500 words max. Beer included.

RIVER STYX Schlafly Beer Micro-Fiction Contest.

A prize of $1,500, 2 cases of Schlafly beer, and publication in River Styx is given annually for the best micro-fiction story. The editors of River Styx will judge. Deadline: December 31 postmark. Limit: 500 words max per story, up to 3 stories per entry. Entry fee: $20 (includes a 1-year subscription). Editor: Richard Newman. River Styx, 3547 Olive St., Ste. 107, St. Louis, MO 63117. Phone: (314) 533-4541. For complete guidelines, see www.riverstyx.org.

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Check out these gorgeous chapbooks by Payseur & Schmidt. The women who run this press apparently have an office in West Seattle. Only blocks from High Point clinic. Why have I never heard of them until now!?

From the I *Heart* Mondays File

Looks like the early bird gets the . . . crabapple?

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Picture borrowed from Loren Webster's In a Dark Time

You Gotta See this Show!

Tania is a hoot and a holler, and a really swell person.

My One Night Stand With Breast Cancer
October 11 - November 11, 2007
In The Bullitt Theatre, at ACT
Running Time: 1 hours, 30 minutes

From the website:
Writer and humorist Tania Katan was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 21. While other people her age were concerned with cramming for college finals or deciding which bar to saunter into for their first legal drink, Tania was dealing with the impact of playing host to a life-threatening disease - receiving chemotherapy, radiation and even a mastectomy... and wondering if any of it was working. It did. Then at age 30 Tania was diagnosed with breast cancer again, and off came her second breast.

Some people, confronted with such a situation would be consumed by despair and eventually succumb to their own vulnerabilities. But that's not what Tania is about.

This world premier stage adaptation of her award-winning memoir, "My One Night Stand with Cancer," regales her rollercoaster experience through lenses of spirited humor and unblinking humanity. Somewhere between confronting mortality, finding her dream girl and running a 10K in under an hour with practically no racing experience, Tania finds herself. Using comedy - both personally and professionally - to mask the fear and pain of her illness, Tania brilliantly weaves the many threads of her story with honesty and insight into a performance that will have any audience in tears and hysterics all at the same time. She reminds each of us wholeheartedly that the essence of real love and laughter are truly the important things in life.

This production is presented by Ethereal Mutt — Limited.

Visit myonenightstandwithcancer.com