Novel: A Sonnet

When I was at Powell's Book Store in Portland recently, I saw a volume of "three-sentence novels" by a European writer. I should have purchased the book, but I'll track it down eventually.

The book reminded me of some "one-page novels" that a former professor of mine, the late Elliot Gilbert, used to write. Elliot was a marvelous professor of Victorian literature, wrote smartly on Kipling (of all people), and also knew a lot about such topics as detective fiction. He was married to the noted poet and feminist critic, Sandra Gilbert.

In any event, I decided to write a "novel" in fourteen lines--a novel stuffed into a sonnet.


Novel: A Sonnet

There was a place where people lived a long,
Long time. They soaked the place with their despair
And overloaded it with lore and song.
And then one day a stranger traveled there.
His presence was an irritant and salve,
Of course--that dual role which strangers play.
He saw someone and something he must have.
His getting them, however, would betray
A secret waiting for him all along.
A certain pressure grew under the weight
of character and fate combined. A wrong
Occurred and love turned into hate.
In more detail, the story stretches out
Three hundred fifty pages, or thereabouts.


Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Veep

At moments like these, it's a pleasure to be a part of academia because one can wander the halls and ask political scientists (PS) what they think of McCain's choice for the candidate for Vice President.

1. PS #1: I cannot explain the choice, so I will not try to explain the choice.

2. PS #2: Whether the choice is good or not depends entirely on who wins the spin-game. The GOP will try to spit the choice as a) good for women [an appeal to women who voted for Senator Clinton] and b) good for conservatives. The Dems will spin it as . . . this person is not qualified to be president, should McCain be elected and then perish.

3. PS #3: The selection makes no sense. Strictly from a political standpoint, it is nutty.

A mere poet, I watch in fascination and wonder why McCain didn't select Kay Hutchinson if the tactic was to appeal to women and conservatives. or Mike Huckabee if the tactic was to appeal to conservatives and those interested in "executive experience."

My own opinion, which is at least worthless, is that McCain had some kind of appeal-to-women in mind but is insecure and did not want to select someone from the primary-race and is also impulsive to the point of recklessness.

I also treaded online turf and sought opinions about the worst vice presidents in history. Of course, one must be a vice president of the U.S. first before one is judged, so McCain's or Obama's choices must first be elected to be eligible to be judged.

Anyway, apparently Burr [dismissed as Veep-candidate, he eventually killed Alexander Hamilton]; Calhoun; Tyler; Agnew [even Nixon thought Agnew was not qualified to hold the post--ouch]; and Quayle. The newspaper The Guardian in the U.K. gave Teddy Roosevelt, Al Gore, Lyndon Johnson, and Dick Cheney high marks. That last one puzzled me; after all, Dick did get liquored up and then proceeded to shoot his friend in the face, he lost his composure badly in the Senate, and he probably egged Bush II to occupy Iraq, out a CIA agent, and conduct illegal wiretaps. On the other hand, Dick has made the most of the post, so I guess that's the logic.

I couldn't unearth any information about Vice Presidents and poetry, but I'm still looking.

I think that after several decades of observing politics, I have come to the point at which I regard presidential politics especially as a kind of surreal poem. Of course, I do wish our nation and the rest of the world the best, but I must confess I do not understand politics as much more than a spectacle which, nonetheless, does affect people's lives, eventually. On the other hand, Veep rhymes with Jeep, so there's that.

C'est le guerre.

Liberal Professors

It seems as if at least once a year, somebody publishes a book about how almost all college professors are liberal, and I notice that this Glenn Beck fellow devoted a show to advising conservative students how to survive and thrive at colleges, which Glenn seems to think are all liberal.

Of course, there are lots of problems with the assumption that most college professors are liberal. There's the definitional problem. Indeed, to political economists, "liberal" still refers to so-called free-market expansion connected to some kind of republican (small r) captitalism. Last year, for example, I heard an economist say that the occupation of Iraq was an experiment in bringing "liberal capitalism" to the Middle East, and he meant liberal as in Adam Smith not as in George McGovern.) Also, "liberal" and "conservative" have been pummeled, misused, and food-processed in the media so much that they'e become empty signifiers. Murray Edelman has observed that, to create a political spectacle, one has to create enemies, and one way to do that is to soil the category-name of your political opponents.

It used to be that environmentalists were automatically judged to be liberal, but with big chunks of glaciers melting daily, etc., environmentalism has become what I have long suspected it to be: practical. Neither Left nor Right but Necessary. People used to mock recycling as a Lefty idea, but now municipalities have well oiled (so to speak) recycling programs, ho -hum. Vaguely responsible fiscal policy used to be associated with conservatives, but the most fiscally conservative president since 1980 has been . . . Clinton, according to the data, and the most fiscally giddy has been Bush II, who cut taxes during a war, which is kind of like quitting your job and maxing out your credit cards at the same time. It's as conservative as a drunken first-time gambler playing craps in Las Vegas. Whoopee!

Maybe the real problem with the liberal-professors thesis, however, is that the people purveying it don't know what professors do most of the time. For example, today I was advising freshmen about what classes to take. What did we discuss? Where they're from, how well they do in math, what their short-term and long-term interests are, and (drum-roll please) what classes will actually have seats left in them when this group registers on Friday. The only political topic that came up was whether to try to take introduction to American politics or introduction to political theory, and once again, the choice hinged mainly on what was open. So even if I had wanted to advocate on behalf of my eccentric politics, I wouldn't have had the time or opportunity.

More to the point, I don't have the slightest interest in advocating on behalf of my politics. I'm tired of my political ideas because I hear them all the time in my own head. 'm much more interested in what students's political views are and even more interested in how they express and support the views. That is, I'm interested in their rhetoric (not in the sense of "empty rhetoric" or "political rhetoric," but in the sense of how they present arguments, go through a reasoning process, and make appeals to authority, history, logic, and so on.) Also, in my experience (mostly from observation), if you want to be sure to dissuade young adults of your views, political or otherwise, try to convince them of the views. Parents of teenagers and young adults will know whereof I speak.

Professors spend a lot of time preparing for class, reading essays or lab reports, going to committee meetings, trying to carve out time to do research, driving their kids to soccer-practice, going to the grocery store, attempting to do something helpful to the cardio-vascular system, blogging, checking email, and so on. If there is a professor out there who wants to distribute copies of the Communist Manifesto to his or her students, I 'd bet that he or she has lost the copies somewhere in the back of the station wagon or under heaps of students' essays on the desk.

So if you saw Glenn Beck's show or read one of these books, and if you're conservative, and if you're worried about liberal professors, I hereby give you permission to chill out. On the list of things to worry about, you probably want to place "liberal professors" at around the 50,243rd slot, or lower. Seriously.

On the other hand, if you're worried that certain professors will induce students to read poetry, then your concerns are well founded. Poetry strikes fear into liberals and conservatives alike. Iambic pentameter--the great equalizer.

Duke Ellington

Some words remembering Duke Ellington:









Duke Ellington


The headline from the Sacramento Bee
Announced that Ellington had died. I think
The article may have referred to him as one
Of those things he really was. They got
It right, if I recall: they said he was
"A treasure"--treasure lost to us, to me,
Who'd only just begun to understand
What I'd been blessed to witness when I spent
A few buck on a ticket for a concert in
A cafeteria--a break from writing essays for
My English 1-B class. I got to hear
Duke Ellington--in a junior-college cafeteria.
That night I was as privileged as a prince
Who'd seen and heard Mozart conduct.
Mere Rocklin was my Salzburg, Duke's jazz
Demotic classical. Duke Ellington had passed,
The headline said. I thought of him, spotlit
That night, a black tuxedo, and the hair
Brushed back. That's how he must have looked
As he strolled past Archangel Gabriel.
To Gabe he may have said, "We love you madly--
But try it in a minor key this time."
When I saw him, I was 18 and thought
I knew just what Duke Ellington deserved.
"He's royalty," I thought, "does not deserve
This gig on cold linoleum." Time is
No satin doll who puts her arms
Round you, and now I think I' may have learned
What Mr. Ellington believed that he deserved:
To write, to play, and to conduct, as long
As God would let him, and anywhere the bus
Or train or plane might go. The music does
Not know it's in the cafeteria, or in
A segregated Cotton Club. And Mr. Ellington,
The evidence suggests, could take care of himself.
Ah, heaven's black piano's always tuned.
The A-train glides like silk into the night.
In Davis, California, and in Harlem, you
Can see the sky, and hear "Mood Indigo."

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

How to Get Ideas For Poems

Occasionally, persons who are not, or who do not see themselves as, writers of poetry, fiction, drama, and the like ask persons who do write such stuff, "How do you get ideas for [poetry, fiction, drama, etc.]?" I can't speak for all or really any of such writers; nonetheless, I suspect some of them might agree with my sense that a lot of writers find it fairly easy to "get ideas." It's the writing itself that is sometimes, maybe even often, the difficulty. It's one thing to have a good or great idea for a short story. It's another to write that short story, and it's still another to make that story as good as you think it needs to be.

In any event, a while back I wrote a poem about how to get ideas for poems. Perhaps the title is too obvious. I'm not sure.





How to Get Ideas for Poems


It's surprisingly easy. Since you're already in
your mind, even if others claim you're not, just
look around in there and see what's on the shelves
and prairies, in the tunnels and trade-shows::
sharks, appliances, jeans, turnips, primal scenes.
Maybe foaming dog-mouths full of teeth.

Scan acres and acres of words--native, transplanted,
farmed, found, pilfered, grafted, milled, mulched. It's
a little known fact that poems are made of words.

Allergies and outrages are good. Grudges, too.
Love? Sure. Why not? Do what you have to do.
You and your mind are already in the world,
in spite of jokes philosophers tell, so you don't
have to make special trips to peaks, Paris,
bull-fighting rings, deserts, or dance-halls
to find what advertisers call inspiration.

If you want inspiration, just keep breathing.
(If you want anything, just keep breathing.)
The poems will follow. Some ideas will cling
the way stickers stab socks when you walk
through brush and grass. Others will settle--
shadow, soot, silt, and shock. Some will pound
on the mind's door like a drunken neighbor
who came back to the wrong house. Some

will whisper and mumble like spies, gossips,
gamblers, and prophets. Basically, just
let it slip that you're a poet. The news
will get around your mind, and there will be
no end to the ideas. You'll have to
fight them off with poems.


Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

The Scorpion King II

We subscribe to cable television, and so we have access to something like 31,238 channels. However, we tend to be interested in only about 6 of them, two or three that run different iterations and re-runs of Law and Order, a couple of so-called "news channels," and channels that give us access to BBC news, programs, and movies. I also like to watch C-Span, the fundamentalist Christian "network," the Weather Channel, and other anomalies.

On one of these selected channels, I saw an advertisement for the DVD of a movie called Scorpion King II. I haven't seen Scorpion King [I], but I think it may have been produced by the unusual people who are in charge of professional-wrestling-entertainment.

I've seen only a couple scorpions in my life, so I'm no expert, but I don't think scorpions are ruled by a monarchy. The scorpions I met seemed like they would rebel against the very idea of a hereditary monarchy, in fact.

However, I gather the scorpion monarchy has not been in place for a long time, as it is now ruled only by its second King. Some monarchies consolidate power via marriage, so maybe the Scorpion King will marry the Princess of Spiders or Lady Bug, who will then become the Scorpion Queen.

Interestingly, I saw no scorpions in the advertisement for The Scorpion King II. Most of the images seemed to be of young body-builders with lubricated upper bodies. They seem to be running and carrying swords from the studio's collection of swords.

The language such advertisements borrow from alleged reviews of the product being offered is a bit like exhausted poetry. For example, the quotations mentioned in this advertisement included the following: "Non-stop action!" "Bone-crushing excitement!"

I like movies in which the action stops occasionally. I like it when people stop chasing each other or hacking off limbs, sit down, and have a conversation. Also, at some point, the action in all movies needs to stop after an hour or two, don't you think? At some point, the credits have to run. As for bone-crushing excitement, I am ambivalent, at best. I can't envisage liking excitement that would result in the crushing of bones.

I don't think I'm going to rent or purchase the DVD for The Scorpion King II. If there is a so-called "Nature" show--on a Public Broadcasting channel--that focuses on scorpions, I am likely to watch it for a while, however.

The Poem Is

The Poem Is


The poem is a woman who
would sing if she weren't so
weary. The poem is a man
who would get up and fight
if he weren't so old. The poem
is a child who would come out
of the room if the world
weren't so strange.

The poem is a mountain
that would be green if
water flowed there. The
poem is a city that would
treat people right if only it
weren't a city. The poem

wants to meet a poem
that understands what
it's like to be the kind of
poem the poem is.

The poem would be epic
if it were arrogant. It would be
lyric if it weren't so lonely.

The poem breaks like a dry
stick and heals itself
miraculously and leans
on itself as it takes a walk
through the woods. The
poem thinks magically.
That is the job of the poem.

The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room


The room waited. No,
that's not true. The room
was empty, so we said
it had been waiting for people
to enter it. They entered
it. We were already there,
waiting. We watched them.
They waited. All over the
planet, operators are
standing by. A man is being
recorded shouting, "But
wait--there's more!" "What
are you waiting for?: that
is a command poorly
disguised as a question.
"I can't wait": this is best
translated as "I am saying
something as I wait." Once
someone told me, "Wait
here." I did so. I am in
fact still waiting. Here.


Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Democracy Today

Democracy Today

A politician's head swelled
and burst out of a televising screen,
crashing onto the floor of my room,
rolling to my feet, where it lay,
face up, a grin glued on like a photo
of a keyboard, eyes fixed wide open,
genderless features painted
with studio-makeup, hair
formed like fine-spun fiberglass,
forehead shining like porcelain.

I howled, jumped up, ran
out the door into the street,
where everyone wore masks
that looked like the face on
the floor of the room I'd fled.
"We're all going to vote!" the
masked crowd cried.
"You will join us!"


Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

For Rose-Gardeners

Is there a flower that humans have been more obsessed by than the rose? Maybe the cherry-blossom; and, indeed, the rose-obsession may be more Western--Greco-Roman/Euro-American--than Eastern. And it's a bit ironic that the rose itself is a bush, a shrub, and of course the cherry is a tree.

Lilies, orchids, daffodils, and poppies have all drawn their share of attention. But especially in Western religious and poetic traditions, the rose seems to have it all going on. Bill the Bard, Robert Burns, Bill Blake, Gertrude Stein, Jean Genet, and even George Eliot (in a wee poem) have famously weighed in on the rose. Rose-poems must number in the millions.

To those who grow roses--or, more accurately, assist roses in their growth--the rose tends to discard its several cultural symbols and starts to represent work, a battleground (chiefly person v. fungus and person v. aphid), a vegetative entity with diva-like whims but also astonishing resilience, and unrequited love. Yes, rose-gardeners fall in love with their roses, in many cases. It's not a pretty sight. That's when the whole thorn v. blossom mythology kicks in.

I had a 20-year fling with roses. Mulching, pruning, spraying (I stuck to organic sprays like neem oil, and a mild, non-detergent soapy spray does just fine with aphids), weeding, staring. A lot of staring. And sighing--in frustration. Fertilizing (I liked organic fertilizers). There is, of course, the illusion that it's all worth it--such as when you pick what really looks like the perfect rose--a blossom, say, from a Mister Lincoln--and the color & perfume really do almost make you swoon, and then you show it to someone else, and they almost swoon. From different objective distances, however, one may raise all sorts of objections to the time and energy spent on roses, to the Rose Industry (floral shops, rose "breeders," garden shops), and to the culture's rose-fetish.

Oddly enough, the most amazing roses I've seen are wild ones growing in a pasture in the Sierra Nevada. They basically turn into huts--an igloo of vines. Once one of our neighbors read about how much Vitamin C was in rose hips--those knots that grow after the petals have fallen--and she began to brew and drink rose-hip tea. Apparently the wild rose-hips had something else in them, however, because she got a little loopy and had to give up the tea. Jonesing for rose-hips. Wow.

Solid tips I picked up over the years: in the Pacific Northwest, prune roses on or near President's day; prune roses into a kind of bowl-shape, and attempt to eliminate the branches on the inside (roses seem to need some space "inside" to ventilate themselves; don't over-fertilize (I know: but what does that mean?) ; checking for aphids is actually more important than waging war on them (when you see them, spray a mild solution of Ivory soap on them; also, ladybugs really do like to dine on aphids).

In the imaginary court of gardening, roses and I reached an amicable rose-divorce. When I stroll past an impressive rose garden, I am most intrigued--and then fatigued, as I imagine all that work, the constant attention.

I did exceptionally well with two kinds of roses, both venerable--Queen Elizabeth and Mister Lincoln, one pink and the other red. I did okay with Peace roses, too, and I had pretty good luck with yellow roses--Sun Sprite was one I liked. A rose called Oklahoma did not do well in the Pacific Northwest, at least for me (and I'm a rank amateur), but that one had my favorite rose-aroma. Roses by other names didn't smell as sweet, nyuk, nyuk.

A poem, then, for rose-gardeners (I think it's in iambic tetrameter):

For Rose-Gardeners

To one who cares for roses, rose
Refers to the whole plant; the flow-
Ers are a kind of coda. To one
Who cares, the tale is in the soil,
Which should be dark and rich and loose.
It should be mulched, and it should breathe,
Perhaps give off a faint bouquet
Of chocolate. The tale proceeds
In pulpy roots of rose, and in
The branches which shoot up so fast
The green-and-purplish growth can seem
A little other-worldly. Leaves
Have much to say as well. They should
Be waxy and deep green but are
Impressionable, go black or brown
Or yellow from the merest wink
Of fungus. Thorns amaze--ornate
Medieval armor for a plant. If
The flowers come and keep coming,
Then one who cares for roses has
Assisted earth and plant to tell
The story well and now may stare,
May bend to sniff perfume or clip
In twilight of a long ritual--
The caring for the whole rose plant.

For Groundskeepers

On a rainy Monday in the Pacific Northwest, here's some blank verse for groundskeepers.





For Groundskeepers


At universities and schools, at parks
And hospitals, at bureaus and museums,
Banks and supermarkets, rows of shops,
Amidst steel and glass, beside the wood,
The brick, the concrete, walls, walks, facades,
In stadia at which rich athletes play,
There are the grounds, that space where those who plan
Our public spaces want to keep the Earth,
A.K.A. Nature, domesticated--kept
As in maintained. And after builders have
Departed and investors disappeared,
Now that the planners have moved on to plan
Their other things, responsibility for care
Resides exclusively with those who keep
The grounds; who dig and clip and weed and care,
Remove what's dead, restrain the growth that has
Become obese or weird. "Groundskeeper" is
One name by which they go. They are by all
Accounts almost invisible, paid not enough,
And tasked too much, no doubt, but genial
In most respects, it seems; the work with soil
And shrub, with grass and tree, must teach
A kind of patience; people who pass by,
Oblivious to the keeping grounds require,
Must also cultivate a sanguine view.
The litterer, the snob, the ones who've never
Held a shovel, wheeled a barrow: no sense
In getting angry at such folks, who are
Less sensitive than plants. Ah, well: Here's thanks
To those who keep our grounds, who care for our
Exteriority. Our cities and our towns,
The places where we work and where
We recreate would be oppresive or
Hard blighted spaces, were it not
For ones with barrows, clippers, spades.
Appreciation's due to those who keep
For us the grounds, who keep them up for us.

Hans Ostrom


Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Picking Blackberries

On one of my urban-hike routes, there are blackberry bushes, hence blackberries. It is August, and humid; therefore, the blackberries are ripening.

I happen to be a veteran blackberry-picker, having picked berries in my youth in the Sierra Nevada, where the blackberries ripen rather late, as late as September, just barely ahead of the frost and the snow.

Poets like to write poems about blackberries, for some reason. For some reason, I've never gotten a poem I like out of the blackberry subject. But that's okay. Blackberries are enough.

Picking blackberries is most satisfying to the single-minded, persons vaguely driven, determined, perhaps a wee bit compulsive. One must ignore how lonely the first berry looks in the container. One must be ready to experience minor thorn-damage on one hand. (one must never wear gloves.) The technique I prefer is to load up one hand with several berries, retrieve the hand, and dump the harvest in the container. But it's not good to get too greedy with one handful.

The more one picks, the more one sees additional ripe berries. It's some kind of Zen thing, I think.

One mustn't eat any berries until late in the game. It's not professional. Also: delayed gratification.

Not-quite-ripe berries don't want to come loose, but you can use them to pull the vine closer to you.

Soon the container is heavy and full, black and gleaming. The image of a pie, or simply berries in cream, materializes.

Blackberries are enough.

Exonerate the Snake?

Some blank verse for Friday, then:

Exonerate the Snake?

The Bible and John Milton blame the Fall

On Slim--the slender slitherer alleged

To have approached Ms. Eve and sold her on

The idea of the Fruit. With deference

And all respect that's due and duly orthodox,

I have my doubts. The snake? A pea-brained length

Of skinny tubing lying in the grass?

A narrow fellow, as Ms. Emily said?

Okay: I know a boa can enwrap

A human or a cow and swallow whole.

Sure, cobras, vipers, rattler, and mocassins

And such can strike and kill. But please. Hold on.

Be serious. If we insist on saying snakes

Must take the fall for loss of Paradise,

It seems we run the risk of looking low--

Yes, lower than the snake. We chose to cast

Off innocence for worldliness, and God

Said, "Fine. I call it sin, and I say it's wrong.

What's more, I think it's dumb. Your lease is up.

Get out of Eden." What happened then, it seems

Was something between God and human kind.

To blame a lowly flicker of the tongue,

A crawler with cold blood and clammy hide,

Seems more than just a bit convenient.

Let's take the rap. The fault was ours, not Snake's.

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom