Olstein/David

     The most striking difference between David and Olstein, I think, made the night most magical.  Poetry is a celebration - Olstein's selections, of nature, and David's of culture.  As a spectator, of any performance, I look for joy.  I was at the first show of the Pixies' reunion tour in 2006.  It was a summer night in Atlanta, hot, muggy as hell, and when they took the stage - all of them grinning ear to ear - it just started pouring.  It was this perfect moment.  Everybody there was completely elated.  That's what I felt at their reading.  Both of them completely enamored of life.
     This was the first I'd ever heard of David but I will most certainly explore his work.  I loved the way he wove cultural relics into his own experience.  As for Olstein, I was most struck by the veneration with which she vocalized her work.  The tie that binds them is this innate thing - this internal voice that compels beautiful creation.
     I think poetry is an inclination, confessional, and impossible to successfully contrive.  Both readers embody that idea.  They both seemed a little uncomfortable with the idea of an particular process.  They love poetry.  They read.  They listen.  It just comes from them.  When it works, it's awestriking.  

 

Autonomous - A Poetic Contemplation

“Autonomous”

Autonomous:  Uh-taw-no-mus.     

Autonomous, there is no us!  Only me!  

Autonomous:  Well, really, it depends what you’re going for, you see.  

Autonomous, I’ve got it better.  Without "us" I’m single, free.

Autonomous:  Come on.  You’ve got to be kidding, Autonomy.  We’re one and the same.  Don't you agree?  Form is merely a formality.    

*Notes on Adjective Exercise

This was inspired, loosely, by Darwish.  Though infrequently, he used textuality in a way that reminded me of e.e. cummings.  In cummings’ “la”, the spatial allocation of the words is important and the written poem is more complex than its spoken counterpart.  For my poem, the scripted dialogue enabled me to begin each line with the adjective, as either speaker, or addressee.  

on Er

     Most immediately striking about Er is her relationship with nature.  She speaks to her reader as an ambassador, in a sense, as a mother might explain a father's actions to their children.  She and nature are old friends, but she never interpolates herself into the text.  She is merely a voice, and though humans and nature are one and the same, she is careful, conscious of her place, of who is speaking and, so, her function.  She has an imperative tone but a humility one cannot deny.  The only agent here is nature.  She just has a better seat.  She transcribes the language of nature onto the page as she is compelled.  The text flows in whichever direction nature intends.
     I've never really considered myself a poet.  I'm more of a Hemingway, tip of the iceberg, kind of girl.  This requires trust, on the writer's part of his/her own effectivity, and of the reader's competence to "get it".  Er does not seem to care if anyone "gets it".  Hers is a different mission.  Nature speaks for itself - Er just writes what she hears.  

darwish

I poured my morning coffee and sat down to start reading Darwish.  I ended up spending my entire morning with him and reading his book cover to cover.  Darwish was a pacifist, an ambassador speaking out from the violence riddled cradle of humanity.  In "A metaphor" on page 54, he captured the delicate balance of the universe, the cosmos, the necessity of coexistence, and the necessity, difficulty, and precariousness with which man must maintain his place within.  "We will become a people when..." he promises his reader on page 54, when we learn to undo centuries of inclination and view our fellow humans as something other than enemies.

He is attractive, sexually even, because of his contemplative sensuality.  Life, to him, is an illusion, a perception at best.  But humans share, across space and time, experiences and consequent desires and philosophies.  This is where I find Darwish most appealing.  There is something universal about Darwish, something that simultaneously evokes and satisfies the primal.  His writing is woven with props, if you will, from his own world that remind the West that if we were to live slower that life might be richer.   Amidst the clutter of conflict is where the beauty of simplicity shines most brightly.

Darwish makes me lament the East and the past.  My only regret is that I cannot understand Arabic, because I'm sure that much is lost in translation.

Aaron

     If I could steal anything from Aaron Shurin it would be his perspective because it, and only it, makes his, ahem, flowery language, work.  Music strikes again and I have to refer to a song quote to explain what I mean.  "You've got a lovely way with words - it's just the way you see the world."  Aaron is a poet for sure.  I feel this effortlessness in his language choices.  He is obviously well read - I picked up on little waves and nods to Plato, Edward Abbey, Foucault, and, of course, Shakespeare - which helps, of course.  But there's this intrinsic writerly quality about him that, I think, he acknowledges, and embraces, in "The Dancers".  Performance is the heart of performing.  Those whose art we love, love to make art - whatever the medium.  Brian Wilson wrote "God Only Knows" about music.  A love song to his form.
   In sharing vivid memories and anecdotes, Shurin becomes a philosophical spokesman for "the" counterculture.  He seems to have found a home and a family along the margins and his adventurous streak could lead him to no better place than the other side of the proverbial margin.  His surrealism, his transcendent moments, feel more honest and organic than many memoirs and biographies that remain firmly planted in reality.  I wanted to be reincarnated as Aaron Shurin.


    

Response to "the Writing Life"

     I chuckled as I read the reviews on the back of my copy of The Writing Life, particularly the one comparing it to the Tao Te Ching.  Littered with anecdotes and proverbs that apply not only to writing, but to life, I thought Dillard's work might deserve an alternate title - Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. 
     "Consider your reader" is my personal mantra and, bound by my own perspective, one with which I sometimes struggle.  Dillard takes this one step further - reminding the writer of the reader by asking "why are we reading?" (72).  The writers' series only reinforced my idea - the only tie that binds writers is writing itself.  Writing is a compulsion.  The who, what, why, when, where, and how, regarding both reading and writing, are various, to say the least.  Writing is difficult - maybe even masochistic.  But the reward - the finished work - the opportunity to speak to others - is one that keeps us working.  A reader may derive his or her own meaning.  This is art.
     My favorite part of The Writing Life, hands down, was the story of the swallow, compelled by David Rahm's skyshow.  The swallow, uninhibited, was moved to create his own show.  He had to act.  On page 78 Dillard advises her fellow writers to simply produce - to make the internal external, regardless of time, organization, or any other inhibiting factor.  You can always reassemble the puzzle, but you must, like the swallow, just create.  Disorder is part of the process and it can be beautiful. 
     "If Rahm knew how he felt he could not have done the work" (119).  This is my new mantra.

Writers' Writers

     Last night was inspirational and in perfect conjunction with Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life".  I love hearing people read their own work.  But the best part, for me, was the Q and A.
     I'm intrigued by process and the array of conditions under which art can produced.  I've always admired artists who can work outside or in a busy cafe.  They look alert.  Groomed.  When I work, either drawing or writing, I'm usually pajama clad, armed with a coffee cup in one hand, and perched precariously on the edge of my seat.  I like to stretch out the morning and inhabit a world that is only mine.  Nighttime sneaks up on me and I regretfully bid adieu to my project.  It's like puppy love in a way - the desire, desperation really, to come back to it as soon as possible.  Brian Wilson wrote "God Only Knows" about music.  When I learned this fun fact, I felt immediately kindred.
     I had this art professor once who realized how lucky he was to love his work.  He admitted to our class that he felt like he'd been getting away with something for twenty years.  That's the thing about creative careers.  Even the most tortured or unrecognized artist emits this thing, this indescribable thing.  They're doing something right and something instinctual, even primal, is satisfied.
     Maybe it's an ability to listen to the self.  Art, to me, is something created by a human.  That's as far as my definition goes.  Sometimes it is functional.  Sometimes it's edible.  Sometimes it is merely conceptual.  People, understandably distracted by life, ignore the voices of their bodies, emotions, and instincts.  It's as though they speak in a language we, as a species, have forgotten.  Writing, art, carpentry, whatever your craft, is a calling.  All of the writers seemed to allude to that last night.  It just is.  For those who can decipher or remember, this compulsion to create is like a physiological need.  It might work, it might not.  Just keep working.