This is one of the most interesting books of poetry I have read in months. I picked it up blind off the shelf at Elliott Bay Books last week. I had never heard of it, don't know who Ted Mathys is (though the name seemed vaguely familiar), had not read a review. I just peeked at a couple poems and thought they looked interesting, so bought it. This is one of my favorite ways to "discover" a new book of poems.

According to the back matter, The Spoils is three long poem series, one about Henry Kissinger and a soccer ball, one about the environment/environmental degradation, and one about a "transformative road trip through the Deep South." I think the language is amazing: a mix of political verbiage, lyric/philosophical musing, dead-pan humor, word lists and mash-ups (sports and politics have an amazing amount in common). Perhaps the coolest part (for me) was in the first section where the shape of some of the poems is similar to a World Cup Soccer bracket (the sports geek in me really liked this): there are 4 groups, with two stanzas of four lines giving way to two stanzas of two lines, giving way to two stanzas of one line, giving way to a single line. These four single lines then would be like the four finalists.

Here is a sample from the Henry Kissinger/World Cup Soccer section. I love what is going on here with the riffing on a basic sentence structure, using word and phrase substitutions. It's very musical, very jazzy, a little flarfy. And I think it says some interesting things about politics and power and the individual-- "the poem must reclaim the nature of surveillance.":

The National Interest

We are interested in long criminal histories
because we've never bedded down in a cellblock.
With the sibilance of wind through the swaying
spires of skyscrapers as my witness. When I say
cover your grenades I mean it's going to rain I mean
there is mischief in every filibuster of sun.

We are interested in rigorously arranging
emotions by color as we've never been fully
divested of blues. With drinking till my fingernails
hurt as my witness, with hurt as my witness.
When I say be demanding I mean be fully
individual while dissolving in the crowd.

We are interested in characters who murder
because we've never committed it or to it.
With an origami frog in a vellum crown spinning
on a fishing line from the ceiling as my witness.
When I say please kneel with me I mean between
every shadow and sad lack falls a word.

We are interested in ceaselessly setting floor joists
because we've never pulled a pole barn spike
from a foot. With bowing to soap your ankles
in the shower as my witness, lather as my witness.
When I say did you see the freckle in her iris I mean
the poem must reclaim the nature of surveillance.

We are interested in possessing others who possess
that which we possess but fear losing in the future.
With a fork as my witness. A dollop of ketchup,
hash brown, motion, with teeth as my witness.
When I say you I don't mean me I don't mean
an exact you I mean a composite you I mean God.

We are interested in God because we can't
possess God, because we can't possess you.
With a scrum of meatheads in IZOD ogling iPods
as my witness, technological progress as my witness.
When I say no such thing as progress in art I mean
"These fragments I have shored against my ruins"

We are interested in ambivalence as ribcages
resist being down when down, up when up.
With the swell of the argument and the moment
before forgiveness as my witness. When I say power
is exclusion I mean a box of rocks we don't
desire to deduce I mean knowing is never enough.

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Are you mad?

I enjoyed this thoughtful piece of commentary about the "angry mobs" at Health Care Reform Town Halls, that I received in an email today:

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn't get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.

You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown.

You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they were sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all OK with you, but helping other Americans? -- well fuck that.


And have a blessed day.

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Death Panels? What a joke!

I LOVE this bit of commentary from the Seattle Times the other day. Spot on!

Resist mob rule; get informed

What a joke ... a death panel! Where have people been for the past umpteen years? Are they not paying attention to what's happened around them? Do they not realize that the insurance companies have had "death panels" for a long time?
Denying people insurance due to "pre-existing conditions," refusing to pay for special procedures, driving people to court to sue in order to get lifesaving procedures for cancer and other life-threatening diseases -- Americans need to wake up.
Stop yelling irrationally and start asking the right questions in a dignified, democratic manner. It's absurd to follow these Internet rally-hounds without asking first who's behind it? Mob rule is wrong and we should be resisting it by being smart and well-informed.

-- Rosanne Cohn, Redmond

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Had a great time at Teatro Zinzanni the other night. The show has really come a long way since we first saw it about ten years ago. All new cast, a more developed show. The little gypsy tent in the parking lot has grown into a full scale theater, with a lounge and lobby area. Very nice!

The show was full of great acts: I especially liked Vita Radionova, the contortionist and hula hoop girl (though she did lose a couple hoops that went flying into the audience), the Vertical Tango couple (a tango done on a dancing pole), and the Petite Freres, three guys who did acrobatics and comedy. But the highlight, for me, was this very romantic song, sung by the madame Liliane and her former lover Caesar (taken from the movie Gigi). It's just such a wonderful evocation of memory, how unreliable it is, and how love/feeling/emotion is what lasts.

I REMEMBER IT WELL
From "Gigi" (1958)
(Lyrics : Alan Jay Lerner / Frederick Loewe)

Honore (Maurice Chevalier) & Mamita (Hermione Gingold)

H: We met at nine
M: We met at eight
H: I was on time
M: No, you were late
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
We dined with friends
M: We dined alone
H: A tenor sang
M: A baritone
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That dazzling April moon!
M: There was none that night
And the month was June
H: That's right. That's right.
M: It warms my heart to know that you
remember still the way you do
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well

H: How often I've thought of that Friday
M: Monday
H: night when we had our last rendezvous
And somehow I foolishly wondered if you might
By some chance be thinking of it too?
That carriage ride
M: You walked me home
H: You lost a glove
M: I lost a comb
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That brilliant sky
M: We had some rain
H: Those Russian songs
M: From sunny Spain
H: You wore a gown of gold
M: I was all in blue
H: Am I getting old?
M: Oh, no, not you
How strong you were
How young and gay
A prince of love
In every way
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well


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I may just have to rent the movie, to see the original!

Seattle has been cooler and cloudier of late. Strange how we love the familiar.

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An interesting little article about some "new" translations of Cavafy. I think I will have to check them out:

"C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems" (Translated with notes) by Daniel Mendelsohn; Knopf (524 pages, $35)
"C.P. Cavafy: The Unfinished Poems" (Translated with notes) by Daniel Mendelsohn; Knopf (144 pages, $30)

A Greek who did not live in Greece, he lived a quiet life with his mother, Herakleia, until her death in 1899, then with unmarried brothers, then alone in his own apartment. An agonized Christian, a voracious reader of ancient history, and a closeted homosexual, he distributed poems and pamphlets privately, but never published a book. His poetry didn't fit the verse of the time, and he gained very limited notice until the 1920s.

So he fell, and still falls, athwart categories. His muted, direct poetry tends to work not through metaphor or simile, but through characters and situations. His effects in Greek are so subtle that translations usually miss them and fall into prose.

Of his two favorite realms, one is Greek/Byzantine history - especially moments narrated by little-known greats, peripheral kings, philosophers, generals, and onlookers. As Mendelsohn so beautifully puts it, the ancient world Cavafy evokes is "rich yet exhausted, glorious yet doomed, proudly attempting to uphold great traditions even as it disintegrates."

Here you'll find a parade of lessers - Alexander Balas, Antiochus Epiphanes, John Cantacuzenus, Anna Dalassene, once-greats now buried by history. They speak of their hopes, disappointments, achievements; few realize they will be swamped in time. These poems teach us much about history, politics, and the foolishness of ever thinking you've got it made.

Cavafy's other realm is sexuality and sensuality. He may have had his first gay encounter when he was 20; for much of his adult life, he'd have a long dinner with Mom at home and then leave her, to visit the tough side of town shopping for tenderness. Although he was extremely discreet about his own life, his poetry becomes more open, especially after her death. After 1911, his attitude and poetry seem to embrace the life he struggled with for so long.

Cavafy's triumph is that his love poems can evoke the same enduring, compelling themes as his history poems: loneliness and loss, the nature of nobility, the ravages of time, the power of pleasure, and the fleeting nature of happiness. The unfinished, exquisite poem "The Photograph" begins with a speaker looking at a former lover's "beautiful youthful face":

Whoa! Hottest day ever in Seattle:

Hour-by-hour temperatures
Temperatures soared around the Puget Sound area:
Sea-Tac Everett Olympia Bremerton
7 a.m. 75 79 68 79
8 a.m. 82 83 75 81
9 a.m. 88 86 81 84
10 a.m. 93 89 83 90
11 a.m. 90 93 86 91
noon 93 95 90 93
1 p.m. 96 96 95 97
2 p.m. 99 98 98 99
3 p.m. 101 98 101 100
4 p.m. 102 98 104 100
5 p.m. 103 98 104 95
6 p.m. 102 96 104 102
7 p.m. 101 93 99 100
8 p.m. 98 88 96 91

I was at work through most of it, seeing patients in relative air conditioned comfort. But driving home it hit me like a freight train. Dean and I decided to go out for dinner, rather than cook, and make the house any hotter. A nice meal at La Cocina, including ice cold margaritas. Ahhhh . . . .

High Summer

Oh my it is HOT HOT HOT in Seattle this week. The garden is just roaring. We have HUGE tomatoes! A couple of the Early Girls (or are they Better Boys?) are ripe already, and it is still only the end of July. Unheard of. And the corn! Easily as high as an elephant's eye. It's really been an amazing summer.

D and I are hunkered down in the basement trying to keep cool. Or, as you can see, enjoying our little "Zero-Gravity" chairs, with a slight modification: attachable beach umbrellas from Rite-Aid (only $6), to keep the sun off our faces.

From Lambda Literary news: this is just so sad:

E. Lynn Harris (1955 - 2009)

With great sadness, I report that New York Times bestselling author E. Lynn Harris passed away on Thursday, July 23, while on tour for his eleventh novel.

I don't know many details yet, but it's believed it was a heart attack. I've spoken with Lisa Moore of Redbone Press and Don Weise of Alyson, both of whom knew him well, and we're all just stunned.

I worked with Lynn for over ten years as his editor and came to be his personal friend as well, so this loss strikes very close for me. Lynn had a very big heart, which he revealed in his storytelling and in his interaction with his audience. Attending a Lynn Harris reading was a family affair, and there were always flowers, tears, and loads of laughter. His novels often changed his reader's lives, and he truly was grateful for his ability to help people. I will miss him, his laughter and his big heart.


Sincerely,

Charles Flowers
Lambda Literary Foundation


From Black Voices Newswire, by Karu F. Daniels:

A Random House executive has confirmed to The BV Newswire that best-selling author E. Lynn Harris has died.

Harris was 54. He was currently on a book tour of the West Coast promoting his 11th novel Basketball Jones, which involved an NBA player and his gay lover.

According to Essence.com, the celebrated author's personal assistant confirmed that his health had declined but would not provide any details as to what caused his death.

A cheerleading sponsor/coach for Arkansas and a passionate Razorbacks fan, Harris' books dealt with black, gay culture.

Most recently, the Detroit native served as a visiting professor for the English department at the University of Arkansas.

The former IBM executive just celebrated his 54th birthday on June 20.

Since bursting on the scene in the early 1990s with his seminal tome Invisible Life, Harris steadily wrote page-turner after page-turner. And his biggest fan base were women. With more than four million books in print, he originated as a self-published author -- setting the blueprint for independent authors getting picked up by major book publishers.

"I think I've been a success because I write about things I'm passionate about and have something to say," he told BlackVoices.com last year. "I think people relate to me because they know I relate to them."

A longtime author for Random House, his titles include Just As I Am, And This Too Shall Pass, Abide With Me, and his 2004 memoir 'What Becomes of The Brokenhearted.

Permanent Bedtime: poetry, sedative, or just a weather report?

I could listen to this woman's voice all day. Or at least until I fell asleep. Take a listen. I have no idea what she is talking about (it has something to do with the weather in shipping lanes in the British Isles, I think), but it is just so pleasantly hypnotic and mesmerizing, and for some reason calming and reassuring. I wonder if all the lonely seamen out there fall in love listening to her?

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The new Light Rail system opens in Seattle today. They are expecting 50,000 riders to take a trip for free today for the grand opening.

Dean and I went down to Pike Market earlier to pick up some fish, and some extra salad makings. It was just packed! All sorts of people dressed in the same teal green shirt (for the Seattle FC soccer match against Chelsea, I suspect). Gorgeous weather, flying fish, coffee, tourists, cameras, sailboats, ferries. What a day!

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I have really enjoyed hearing bits of Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. It is such a pleasure to hear her calm, reasoned, intelligent voice. She actually knows the constitution! My favorite part was Al Franken's questions, and when he asked if the word "abortion," the word "birth control," the word "privacy" were in the constitution. The first two were easy, of course, but the third one, "privacy" she answered without a moment's hesitation (no, it does not), and then went off on a reasoned explanation about the thread of court decisions over the years that have addressed privacy. Just excellent.

From today's Word a Day:
Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is also a published poet?! (I love that the name of the magazine is Rubbish.)

The collection was published in November 2007 in Rubbish magazine, an annual publication with a circulation of 3,000 which describes itself as "a playful platform for fashionable people".

Introducing Radcliffe's verses, it says it is "proudly debuting the work of Jacob Gershon, 17, a very exciting and dynamic young poet".

A spokesman for the magazine said: "Poetry is a key aspect to Rubbish, so it was fantastic to be able to provide the platform for 'Jacob' and his debut work."

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This was such a sweet story: Iconic Woodstock couple keeps spirit of the festival alive. They had known each other for only about 3 months at the time the original photo was taken. Now they have been together over 40 years.

I love this poem by Sara Wainscott in the latest issue of Poetry Northwest. For some reason it just speaks to me. I have scanned it in to preserve the formatting, just click on it to view.










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Saw this over at Emily's blog. I love the idea of a Flag for Equal Marriage. One star for each state that has joined the movement. It feels very revolutionary, very early American, very DAR. And it projects "real" American values into the faces of all the homophobes.

Sunday just about noon. Sitting in the cool basement. It has just been the hottest sunniest June-July that I can remember. I feel like we have already had a month of summer, and summer has really only just started. It’s really been amazing. But Dean and I have had to be particularly mindful about the garden, and keeping up on the watering. Hopefully it means we will have a bumper crop of hot weather veggies: tomatoes, peppers, cukes etc.

Speaking of which, we had such an abundance of fresh broccoli and zucchini the other day, that I tried blanching and freezing them. I found the instructions on line here: How to Freeze Summer Squash. It’s pretty easy to do: wash, cut, toss in a boiling water bath for three minutes, then an ice bath for 5 minutes (to stop the cooking process). Then let drip dry, then place on a tray to freeze before bagging in food sealer (or just put directly into food sealer). We’ll see how they are to eat later this winter, over pasta or in soup. Hopefully they will be full of summer flavor and still crisp, not mushy.

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Watched poor Andy Roddick loose 16-14 in an epic 5th set to Roger Federer at Wimbledon. I am so bummed. I wanted Andy to win so bad. He only lost his serve once in the entire match, and it was in the final game. Arrrggghhh.

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PALIN RESIGNS!! (ding dong the witch is dead?)

Watch the entire kooky rambling video here. Is she setting herself up for a 2012 presidential run, or for more Britney-esque tabloid fodder for years to come?

Remember this when the primaries begin: Palin is a QUITTER. She abandoned her post when the going got tough.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/sarah-palin-resigns-as-al_b_225515.html

This cover image from the latest issue of Seattle's The Stranger is in such bad taste, I just love it.