I wrote this poem after visiting a photo exhibit at Mexic-Arte Museum in downtown Austin.
Maria from Monterrey
It’s not terribly far, as a bird flies, from Monterrey to Laredo
Young Maria’s journey was wingless
She moved at night, her thirst unsatisfied
Coyotes and owls shared their star-lit canyons
When she slept she had bad dreams of home
Maria finished fourth grade at Santo Nino Elementary
The family moved to San Antonio for a year
English slid smoothly from her tongue
Sister Sarah said she could go to college
“Do they have scholarships for Dreamers?”
Her softball coach was no Nun
Her history teacher spit white lies
Maria found some solace in science
She played her flute by the lake
Butterflies swooned, Suzy, the poodle exhaled
The people of Laredo named her “Best Dental Hygienist”
Maria was always careful with the instruments
Her husband the handsome highway engineer
They made friends with other parents at the pool
She never served a casserole
When Don descended the neighbors turned
The lady at daycare asked for her papers
The dental group let her go
America turned its lights down
Maria cursed the powers that be
Now, heavy white clouds roll in from the Gulf
Torrential rains pound the dry Earth
Maria bathes half-naked in the yard
Her minerality is pure Meximerican
Her spirit, mighty Texican
The Circus is no longer kid-friendly
What’s all this clankity clank?
Who dares to rattle the cage?
Why are all the clowns on stage?
We can’t see the lion eat his tamer
Downward we spiral into the Dungeons of Deceit
Unfree people in patriots purgatory
Shall we cry out?
How do we climb out?
Amplified trash grows and glows
Poets Howl
Filling vacant minds with word gas
Ignited we rise
Distracted we fall
Break glass in case of fire
Fire!
Barking sirens, dogs in chains
The city says tat tat tat
Another hot pistol
The ring has no master
Go ahead — scream!
Still, the beasts roar
You are free to rhyme
With this well-intentioned reason
When the game gets rough
Hotheads go puff puff
Hands off my stuff
I never get enough
We were in the second row Tuesday night for “Julius Caesar” at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. The play, directed by Shana Cooper, is both timely and powerful. This modern production is also highly inventive. The ancient tale is set in contemporary times, with urban decay on full display—the walls are literally decomposing as the narrative unfolds.
The play is full of memorable scenes. The closing of the First Act is absolutely searing and unforgettable. We watched a mob stomp an innocent poet to death while chanting “tear him”.
Violence is at the center of this play and at the center of the human drama. Caesar is murdered. Mobs are incited to kill. A civil war breaks out. Shakespeare wrote “Julius Caesar” in 1599. The events that the play depicts occurred many centuries before that. Yet, the play could not be more relevant than it is right now.
Let’s hear from Cassius, a Senator, on the conditions in Rome…
CASSIUS
And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep;
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate
So vile a thing as Caesar! (Act 1, Scene 3)
Cassius is the main conspirator, along with Brutus. They’re both moody men who let their assumptions get the best of them, and who are ultimately trapped by their own minds and obsessions. In the above passage, Cassius seems to say it’s the common Roman who is equally at fault, and that people get the leaders they deserve. His conspiracy to murder Caesar was driven by the idea that he might do horrible things sometime in the future. It was not about settling an old score for a crime he had already perpetrated. I like Cassius for the most part, but Caesar rightly notes that “he thinks too much.”
Another theme in the play that stands out is how easy it is to sway the crowd with rhetoric, as Mark Antony proves at Caesar’s funeral.
ANTONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. (Act 3, Scene 2)
Shakespeare is the master of duplicitous tongues, and in Mark Antony, the Bard has a perfect snake. Antony praises Caesar while inciting his fellow Romans to drive the conspirators from their homes. He’s a real piece of work, Mark Antony.
What can we learn from this amazing historical drama from the world’s greatest playwright? We can learn that power is a narcotic, while deceit and violence are blunt means to power’s unjust ends.
President Obama’s speech in Selma, Alabama on Saturday—commemorating the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”—was a major moment in his presidency, and a reminder to all how far we have come as a nation in 50 years.
The context and setting of the speech helped to amplify the power of the President’s words, which ring poetic throughout.
We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction, because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.
The speech contains passage after passage of language artfully rendered. President Obama has a strong vision for America—and his own place in it—which is both remarkable, and proof that we have indeed “broke the old aristocracies,” at least to some degree.
Yet, racism is not gone from the American scene. It is still a daily reality for many Americans. Pick any headline (or personal incident) you want. For instance, David Boren, the President of University of Oklahoma, banned a fraternity from campus on Monday and declared the students “a disgrace” and “not real Sooners”, for singing a racist chant at a frat function.
Hats off to David Boren in Norman, OK. “We know America is what we make of it.” The struggle to make ourselves and our nation better is not easy, nor will it be easy going forward, but it is a struggle worthy of our energy and full attention.
As President Obama said on Saturday, “We are the people Emerson wrote of, ‘who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long; who are ‘never tired,’ so long as we can see far enough.”
“Information without context strikes the mind but peters out before the heart.” -Sarah Smarsh
Creative nonfiction is a form I find myself increasingly drawn to. In the hands of a great essayist, we see a real writer struggle with real life.
Sarah Smarsh, for instance. She is a Kansas-born journalist, public speaker and educator, and her recent piece of media criticism in Aeon struck a nerve.
In a media landscape of zip-fast reports as stripped of context as a potato might be stripped of fibre, most news stories fail to satiate. We don’t consume news all day because we’re hungry for information – we consume it because we’re hungry for connection. That’s the confusing conundrum for the 21st century heart and mind: to be at once over-informed and grasping for understanding.
In her essay, Smarsh exposes the mechanics of reporting and the news business as one culprit in the dehumanization on news. She also explores the need for real story, versus packaged up text masquerading as coherent content. Regarding what is sometimes called “hard news” she writes:
…in J-school my peers and I learned never to call 10 inches of lede, nutgraph and body an ‘article’ – true journos, we were told, call them ‘stories’
I hear and admire Smarsh’s call for a higher standard in today’s metric-fed mediascape. Media enterprises need page views, subscribers, events, merchandise and ad dollars to survive. I get that, and most writers get that. We also get that there’s a need to make a product or service out of our writing, and for the most part, we are happy to abide by these terms. Perhaps publishers, editors and writers can begin to work towards more equitable outcomes all around.
Smarsh writes about how we’re “hungry for connection” today. I agree. Imagine hiring a great chef, sous chef, line cooks and prep cooks and outfitting them with all the best kitchen equipment. But then you tie their hands when it comes to ingredients—all this talented crew can make is pork and beans, onion soup and tater tots. Publishers are in a hurry to be mass feeders of media. Conventional wisdom says that’s where the money is.
Brands want a return on content. B. Bonin Bough of Mondelēz International argues that “without the metric of monetization, there really is no way for you to determine whether content is good or bad.”
Media companies also want a positive return on their investment in content. Meanwhile, people find it hard to pay attention, can’t sit still, can’t take it all in. A lot of smart people are working on answers to the media conundrum. I am glad, because it’s easy enough to see the connection between junk media and an unhealthy citizenry.
As a writer, I want to answer Smarsh’s call for more substance and more heart in the pieces we put into the world. As a reader and consumer of media, I want to scroll less and read and think more.
“What do you do?” It’s the age-old question that is always lurking, waiting to be asked at the next industry conference, cocktail party, and/or random encounter on an airplane.
In one way, the question is innocent and a genuine attempt to understand more about you. On the other hand, it’s a moment of truth where judgements will be levied, no matter how conscious the parties involved. Personally, I prefer the question, “What are you working on?” It’s not nearly as loaded. Yet, I can only control what I can control, which is to say I will continue face the question, “What do you do?”
Author and mentalist Tim David, writing in Harvard Business Review, outlines a four-point approach that is both disarming and effective.
When asked, “What do you do?” Mr. David suggests that you reply with:
A verbal slap
Ask a problem question
Go for the head nod
End with a curiosity statement
Let’s examine his approach more carefully:
From studying his example, I’ve managed to work out my own version of an effective reply.
What do you do?
Verbal Slap: I was an archery coach, but I couldn’t take all the traveling by van.
Ask a problem question: You know how company’s tend to annoy you with all their commercials?
Go for the head nod: You’re annoyed because the company doesn’t understand you, and they “talk down” to you.
Curiosity statement: I help companies annoy you less by getting them to hone in on genuine stories, and by using narrative techniques perfected around the campfire for millennia.
“People love to talk. They love to slander you if you have any substance.” -Mattie Ross
Mike Kline, my friend since freshman year at F&M, was in Portland with his family last August. Over Italian food and later over coffee at Albina Press, we spoke of President Obama’s performance in the White House, Portland’s strange ways and finally books. Mike suggested that I read True Grit by Charles Portis. He said I would enjoy it (he was correct!), and also that he is teaching the novel this fall at Shipley School in suburban Philadelphia.
Charles Portis is from Arkansas. He lives in Little Rock. His most famous heroine, Mattie Ross, is also from Arkansas, from “near Dardanelle in Yell County,” to be exact. The events of True Grit take place in 1873, but the story is recounted by Mattie as an old woman.
The novel, published in 1968, has twice been made into a Hollywood film. The first production earned John Wayne a best acting nod for the Oscar. The remake was a Coen brothers movie. Let’s have a look at young Mattie through the Coen brothers’ lens:
There’s a solid argument to be made that Mattie Ross is a feminist hero. Another way to read the book is to understand how hard it was to live on the American frontier in the 19th century. Teen girls were not taking selfies, they were working on the farm and in the house. Mattie Ross is an exceptional figure, larger than life in many ways, but there’s also an unvarnished realism here. She’s a Bible quoting Presbyterian who doesn’t have time to trifle. How exactly do we think the West was won? By women (or girls, as the case may be) like Mattie.
Portis worked as a journalist in New York City before moving home to Arkansas to write books. He has four other novels to his credit—The Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis, Gringo, and Norwood—all of which are fan favorites. The New York Times says of his books: “Mr. Portis evokes an eccentric, absurd world with a completely straight face. As a result there are not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments or explosive set pieces here. Instead of shooting off fireworks the books shimmer with a continuous comic glow.”
Clearly, Portis has a unique voice and a great sense of detail to go with his good humor. I’m also intrigued by his knowledge of American history and fascination with place. In an essay for The Atlantic, “Combinations of Jacksons,” Portis describes his family history and culture, both firmly rooted in place.
MY ALABAMA grandmother wasn’t pleased when her youngest son (a seventh son, my father) told her of his plans to marry an Arkansas girl. She kindly explained to him that the unfortunate women living west of the Mississippi River had, among other defects, feet at least one size bigger than those of their dainty little sisters to the east. No Cinderella to be found in the Bear State. Any mention of that old slander, even a teasing one fifty years later, could still make my placid mother bristle and blaze up a little. In any kind of refined-foot contest, she said, she would pit her Waddell-Fielding-Arkansas feet against all comers with Portis-Poole-Alabama feet.
In my quest to understand the man, I read his novel, The Dog of the South directly following my reading of True Grit. The Dog of the South is narrated by a son of Little Rock and failed journalist, Ray Midge. Midge, 26, is a bit of a mess, but he’s also on a quest to right the wrongs in his life, thus he is also heroic. His hero’s journey to Central America and back is clownish, for sure, but there’s also a seriousness of intent and time for informed reflection. Ideals, people and places worth fighting for (including actual battle sites along his route)—this is what occupies his mind as he travels by car to find his runaway wife.
There’s a passage at the end of The Dog of the South, where Midge is back in Little Rock and catching the reader up on his status. He says, “A lot of people leave Arkansas and most of them come back sooner or later. They can’t quite achieve escape velocity.” I love this line. Place, particularly one’s home place, has a magnetic hold on us and Portis both reveals this truth, and revels in it.
Jerry Garcia was born 72 years ago this week. Garcia brought millions of people together—people who are now married, or best friends or co-workers, and he introduced even more people to a life of beauty and music. In order to “Keep on Shinin’,” (as Jerry would have us do) let’s take a few moments to explore one important aspect of Grateful Dead culture—the genius of lyricist Robert Hunter.
Steve Silberman is a brilliant writer and a well known Deadhead. In 1992, when Grateful Dead’s legendary lyricist, Robert Hunter, started producing volumes of poetry, Silberman interviewed Hunter for Poetry Flash.
Here is one small piece of their dialogue:
SILBERMAN: The song “Box of Rain” began as a rough vocal outline from Phil [Dead bassist Lesh]. How does that process work?
HUNTER: Scat singing: “Dum-dum dum, da-da-da-da, bump-dum-dum-dum-dum, dee-dee-dee.” I’m able to translate peoples’ scat. I hear English in it, almost as though I write down what I hear underneath that. I hear the intention. It’s a talent like the Rubik’s Cube, or something like that, and it comes easily to me. Which might be why I like Language poetry. I can tell from the rhythms, or lack of rhythms, from the disjunctures and the end stoppages, what they’re avoiding saying– the meaning that they would like to not be stating there, comes rushing through to me. I understand dogs. I can talk to babies.
A cat dictated “China Cat Sunflower” to me. It was just sittin’ on my stomach, purring away, and sayin’ this stuff. I just write it down; I guess it’s plagiarism. I’ve credited the cat, right? [laughing]
Clearly, the cat on Hunter’s tummy had quite the vocabulary. “I rang a silent bell beneath a shower of pearls in the eagle wing palace of the Queen Chinee.”
The interview with Hunter is heady matter. I read and write poetry, yet much of the conversation is beyond me. Which is fine, I like stretching to pull goods from the top shelf. Here’s what I found up there, tucked neatly away in Hunter’s memory.
About 25 years ago I was visiting a girlfriend in the City, and there was this little orange book in her bookcase that I pulled out. It was On Out, by Lew Welch, and I thought, “How long has this been going on?”
Naturally, the slender volume so key to Hunter’s development as a poet is now out of print. Which leads me to wonder why any book of merit would be hard to find today. The notion of being “out of print” is itself an anachronism. We can unearth these volumes and make them available in digital formats.
Thankfully, there are web-ready copies of a few of Welch’s poems. “Chicago Poem” is particularly hard-hitting, whereas “Ring of Bone” is simply lovely in every way.
The clever display of the poem fragment above is from Paulann Petersen, Oregon’s Poet Laureate. Interestingly, in this Art Beat Oregon segment on OPB, Petersen says poetry must be spoken to be fully realized.
She is right! Here I am sounding out a poem about living in the white noise of Chicago.
U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, writing in Virginia Quarterly, says it’s important to see poetry as a cultural force, and to believe in the necessity of it.
Trethewey also makes this deeply poetic point about poetry’s place in our culture:
Each day we are faced with sound bites and catchphrases deadening and trivializing our language, the widening gulf of our ideological differences eroding civil discourse and our ability to truly communicate with each other, to hear each other. For all of that, poetry is the corrective, the sacred language that allows us to connect across time and space, across all the things in everyday life that separate us and would destroy us.
Last year I began to actively seek out new places to publish my writing.
As someone who has invested heavily in the development of my own sites, I felt it was important to break out of any traps of my own making. To this end, here are three new pieces of writing (not published on any of my own sites) that I’d like to share with you:
Medium is an interesting development for readers and writers. It’s a platform for text, where writers self-publish as they would on their own sites. The difference is Medium offers what only a platform can: opportunities for discovery, collaboration and recommendation.
The web is too big. Millions of personal websites are too hard to find, bookmark, return to and read. Some are well designed for reading, others not so much. I wouldn’t say stand-alone web sites are in danger of extinction, but there is a shift from owned media to shared media.
In my own world, I saw the need for consolidation and focus, which led me to step away from AdPulp.com after a nine year run. The topic became tiresome, but it was also a matter of economics. David Burn the writer and brand builder makes money. David Burn the ad blogger makes friends in the business, and sometimes those friends lead to work.
A blog can be good for business, but the line from the blog to your paid product or service has to be direct and I didn’t have that on AdPulp. I do have that on Bonehook.com.
