Privilege

Privilege #238B.1


To wake up at 3:21 a.m. in a warm,
clean bed in a heated, electrified
house, go to an equipped kitchen,
eat a banana, drink clean water, listen
to a neighborhood's silence, return
to bed, read a book by good light,
open a notebook and scribble, turn
off the light, and go back to sleep.



Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Post 666: Hmmmm

According to the blog-machinery, this is post 666 on my Poet's Musings blog. You couldn't prove it by me, as I've not been counting.

When they still scored the Law School Admissions Test on an 800 scale, I received a 666. Many reasons went into my deciding not to go to law school, but this was among them. I thought someone was trying to send me a message. I told a class this today--and added that, unfortunately, because I took "this" road and not "that" road, I'm their professor.

Except for 666, I'm extremely uninformed about things related to numerology, etc. I have, however, always rather liked the number 4. And I wrote a series of poems on number 1 through 10. I think 4 and 10 produced the best poems.

This 666-business is sure popular in Hollywood horror movies.

Allllllrighteeeeeee, then, as Jim Carey likes to say: this has been post 666.

The Original Salesman

The Original Salesman

Maybe the first salesman went from
cave to cave, peddling pebbles, bones,
and moss, telling stories as he heard
them all along the way. No one bought
anything, as he was way ahead of his
concept. At least he got to see

the world, barter his way to mobility,
hunt approval, gather lies, trade
a carved femur for burnt meat
and a bowl of water. Good news:

no quotas, no district manager, not
even a company. No fake warranties,
handling fees, or special offers. Just
a person who liked to keep moving
and loved the look on people's faces
when he opened up his bag
of electic stuff. Bad news: disease
and weariness. --And people

do establish their territories, lingo,
kinship-networks, customs,
terrors, beliefs, and hate. That's
when you really need to sell it,
man--to convince them how harmless
you are, how very sensible it is for
them not to kill you. That's
a pitch that needs to work.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Thirteen Ways

(image: Wallace Stevens)

We're going to discuss Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" today in the poetry-writing class. Then we'll do some writing based on prompts springing from the poem--and from other poems that express multiple perspectives.

Arguably, the poem is Stevens at his best: philosophical but whimsical, very playful with language, and pleasantly self-conscious about imagination and imagining. The poem is indelible.

For some reason, I don't like his use of Roman numerals to number the sections. They seem too heavy for the poem--maybe that's it.

If forced to pick a favorite way, I'd probably go with XII:

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

Here we have quintessential "poetic 'logic,'" and also the kind of primitive logic that sometimes operates when one is in or around nature. The lines provide the kind of "leap" that Robert Bly treasures and that he claims isn't in American poetry to a sufficient degree. I also appreciate how comparatively flat the phrasing is--in comparison to that of other sections, where the lingo is lush.

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Sometimes readers new and not so new to the poem get frustrated by some of the sections, which seem too cryptic to them. The poem is really a bit of linguistic jazz, so listening to it as jazz and not worrying about decoding every "note" comprise one way around the frustration.

My friend, co-writer, and co-editor, the late Wendy Bishop, wrote a superb creative-writing textbook that takes its name from Stevens' poem: Thirteen Ways of Looking For a Poem. It's full of good poetry, great discussions of writing poetry, and superb specific prompts for poems. Published by Longman. And Wendy's own collected book of poems is My Last Door.

And here's hoping the week goes well for you in at least thirteen ways.

Going Through Customs

The Current Customs

At the airport in Vancouver, B.C., the border's
inside the terminal, which is many miles and
kilometers from the border, so the border
in the airport's even more arbitrary, let us
say imaginary, than the "real" one. You

round a corner that's under reconstruction,
and at some point, the linoleum becomes
"U.S.A" not "Canada." You have to take off
your shoes, declare you're not a farm-animal,
surrender anything sharp or metal, expose
your collection of sad toiletries (including bad
aftershave that was on sale), and allow
the underwear in your luggage to be X-ray-ed
to see if it has pulmonary problems.

Finally you approach a glass-enclosed booth
and show your passport. The customs-agent
either sells you a movie-ticket, tells you your
passport belong to Franz Kafka and arrests
you, or lets you back into the nation where
you pay taxes--even though you already
passed a sign that said, "Welcome to the
United States of America." Our customs get

more labyrinthine every year, and does
anyone besides the Germans stamp
passports anymore with that authoritative
whack of ink? Anyway, having passed
the point of demarcation, you buy coffee
from an outpost of a multinational
corporation using a tossed salad of
two currencies. A recent immigrant serves

you. His daughter will become
an entrepreneur, a civil rights attorney,
or a diplomat in Canada, the U.S., or
a country-to-be-named-later. You
have passed through customs.

Sixty Bees of Separation

Sixty Bees of Separation


The man misheard me and believed
I'd said "sixty bees of separation"
instead of "six degrees . . ." and he
wanted to know "what the hell"
I was talking about--what did I
mean by sixty bees of separation?

I went with a mondegreenish
improvisation and said that
according to a South American
legend, sixty bees once got
separated from a magical hive
in the Amazon Basin. Ever since
then, the bees have been
circling the globe, searching
in vain for their indigenous nest.

I said according to the myth,
if all sixty bees locate the hive
and end the separation,
the waters of the Amazon
will turn to honey. "Oh,"
said the man, "it's just some
legend, then." "Yes," I said.
"It is the Legend of the Sixty
Bees of Separation."


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Scuffling With A Poem

A Poetry Scuffle


The poem asserted snow "is like
an invasion of feathers," and I said,
"Snow isn't anything of the sort. What
a ridiculous comparison." Then the poem
and I really got into it. It threw
an overhand quatrain and caught
the side of my head. I kneed it
in the last line. We ended up
on the floor, gouging and choking.


Our friends finally broke it up.
One of them told me, "You're
not supposed to beat up your
own poetry. That's what critics
are for." "He started it!" I lied.
"You're an adult poet," said my
friend. "Act like one. So what if
there is a dumb simile in the poem.
Ever heard of 'revision'?"


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

The Day's Amusements

At my local cafe, I almost always get an old-school beverage--espresso macchiato, two shots. Of course, my parents' generation regarded a CUP OF COFFEE as an old-school drink, which they never called a beverage. At any rate, today I ordered a steamed soy-milk with sugar-free vanilla flavor. The barista looked at me with grave disappointment and said, "And we thought we knew you."

So then, partly because it's tax-season, one with whom I live and I started talking finances. I had just learned that for one of our credit-cards, there are two accounts but one balance. I still don't understand how that works, and being confused, I started expressing my outrage at the world of finance. My conversational partner shook her head as if to say, "I know you too well," and she said the financial terminology I was using was completely wrong. I said, "And you know what's funnier than that?--I'm on a budget-committee where I work!" She tried to let me down easy by saying, "You're conceptually very strong. It's just that your terminology is awful." Well, kind of easy.

It's almost April, and it's almost snowing again in Tacoma. This is pretty much Unheard Of. It's as if the Weather God is saying, "Let's see, should I start Spring?. . . Nah." "Computer says nah," as Stephen Wright says. At least I think it's Stephen Wright.

Then there's this guy in L.A. with whom I'm working on a project, and he emails me via his phone from his boat out on the sunny Pacific. I understand how the technology works, but I'm still amazed by it, and I still want phones to weigh 50-60 pounds. I'm trying to tamp down my envy about the whole boat, sunshine, I-phone situation down there as I sit and watch snow-flakes attempt to form.

And I learned from a blogger that country/folk (and blues/gospel influenced) singer Kate Campbell sometimes reads my Emily/Elvis poem at concerts. How cool is that? She has some great subtle, surprising songs about Elvis. She's a terrific lyricist.

This isn't being sent from my I-phone as I lie on a boat in sunshine on the Pacific.

International Rhododendrons

Rhododendrons were something of a revelation to me when I moved to the Pacific Northwest. Unassuming but noble most of the year, rhododendrons blossom extravagantly in Spring.

Soon we inhabited some homes with yards that included venerable "rhodies," and I became even more intrigued by them. Many gardeners give rhodies a great deal of attention, going so far as to pluck off the dried blossoms in late Spring/early Summer. I never did that, partly out of respect for the rhodies, which seemed quite self-sufficient to me. They do grow like mad, so sometimes pruning is called for. And they like some acidic fertilizer every now and then. --And water if the weather gets real hot. Otherwise, they just flourish: part of their charm, as far as I'm concerned. They provide some nice balance to roses, which require constant care, it seems.


Rhododendrons Without A Country


Rhododendrons in Canada and the U.S.
may be aware of a lot, but they don't know
they're Canadian or American. They're
even undecided about whether to be trees
or shrubs. Unsurprisingly, then, they bloom
cautiously. Vivid swatches of color peek
through grenade-size buds and give Spring
a good hard look to see if it's serious or
a double-agent working for Winter.

Rhododendrons never carry a passport
or negotiate treaties. They're model
citizens of forests, parks, and gardens.
Their leaves are leathery, seem wise.
Rhododendrons conduct business with
sun, soil, and rain. They exhibit a
cosmopolitan poise that rises
above petty nationalism.

Copyright 2009

Herrick's Poem, Reader's Face, Let's Party

(image: Likeness of Robert Herrick [1591-1674])

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To the Sour Reader

by Robert Herrick

If thou dislik'st the piece thou light'st on first,

Think that of all that I have writ the worst;

But if though read'st my book unto the end,

And still dost this and that verse reprehend,

O perverse man! If all disgustful be,

The extreme scab take thee and thine, for me.

Well, then! Here is poetry as a bit of a contact-sport. Instead of invoking the muses, Herrick invokes the reader, and, as I interpret the poem, he gives the reader two options: 1) If you don't like the first poem you read in my book, then simply assume that that poem is the worst poem in the book and move on from there (to what will, by definition, be better poetry). 2) If you don't like any of the poems, then you are perverse, and I curse you; specifically, may an extreme scab afflict you and those whom you know.

A poet and poem with attitude: not bad. Also a poet who probably wore a wig, judging by the image above. He looks like he could have played in a 1980s rock-band. Or maybe 1970s: He looks just a bit like Tony Orlando from "Tony Orlando and Dawn."

The use of "reprehend" is nice. We're used to "reprehensible." I don't hear or read "reprehend" much if at all anymore, though.

"Scab," I assume, in this case refers more to a disease than a single scab (crusted-over wound), per se. Here is an example from the OED online that may obtain (from anotheer poet, George Herbert, although not from a poem):

G. Herbert Jacula Prudentum 1137 The itch of disputing is the scab of the Church [transl. of the saying Disputandi prurigo est ecclesiæ scabies].

"Scab" also, of course, has come to refer to a worker who takes the job of a union-worker on strike. I haven't looked into the origins of that figurative use yet, but I probably will.

In the meantime, here's to Robert Herrick and his aggressive opening gambit toward is audience, even though the audience could have simply closed the book in outrage--and hoped the curse would not come to pass.

In a preface or foreword to one of his poetry-books, William Stafford was somewhat more subtle. If memory serves he wrote, "And to my critics: thanks, anyway." Lovely.

The Latest Spring

The Latest Spring

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Well, we were all out in the icy air,

behaving as if Spring weren't later

than we'd ever not seen it. I had seeds

to plant and seeds to feed birds. I

loaded up the bird-feeder, looked up,

and saw a fat robin squatting on

the roof, hunkered down. It seemed

too cold to move. It looked at me.

I looked at it. Chilled and in

no mood to plant, I gave up and went

inside. Birds and I have always

gotten along just fine. I'm not sure

why. Maybe we interpret weather

similarly, and we try to say busy.

They weren't moving around

much today. Me, neither.

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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Grocery Carts

I use the term "grocery-cart," I think, because I want to focus on the Old School metal baskets-on-wheels, as opposed to the plastic versions ("shopping carts") one is more likely to see at a place that sells clothing cheaply. For some reason, really simple, basic technology--like bicycles, grocery-carts, and hand-turned cake-mixers--continues to fascinate me.


Grocery Carts

Sometimes many grocery carts collectively embrace to create a long hive of silver caging in a parking lot. At night this is how new grocery-carts are born.

From a train, I saw a solitary grocery cart abandoned upside-down on a cresting wave of blackberry vines. I felt the tragedy of its never carrying groceries again. I almost wept, but luckily the train was moving quickly.

Sometimes people who live outside, using layers of clothing as housing, shuffle behind grocery carts filled with all their possessions. The carts look like they were intended precisely for such use. The carts belong to the people.

By accident, I've put an item I wished to buy in someone else's grocery cart. Apologizing, retrieving my quotidian item, I glance at the items the other person has chosen, and I'm envious. What excellent choices they have made! What a superb shopping-list they must have composed before coming to the store!

Sometimes a realtor's face appears on a plastic flap attached to a grocery cart. The face smiles at me no matter what I purchase. It is not judgmental. If I buy pickled herring, the face keeps smiling, as if it were the face of a Swedish realtor.

Sometimes a full grocery cart stands alone on the other side of the cashier's station: someone was unable to pay. One thinks, "There but for the grace of . . .".

Sometimes grocery carts linger at bus-stops. They wait for a bus shaped like a massive grocery cart. This bus will take them home.

Sometimes the grocery cart I select is wounded. It favors one of its wheels. The wheel wobbles like a nervous person. Loyal to a fault, I stick with the cart I chose. It squeaks with pain and wants to stop shopping, but I press on. "Hang in there," I whisper to the cart, "I just have to get some pickled herring and pay for the groceries, and then you may rest."

Sometimes I take an item out of the grocery cart and put it back on the shelf. I think of the person who will buy the item. Our lives will be obscurely connected by the thinnest thread of retail commerce.

Sometimes the eclectic items in the grocery cart seem to be getting acquainted before I arrive at the cashier's station. I can almost hear an orange say to a bar of soap, "What's it like to be processed? I ask only because my cousin became orange juice."

Sometimes too many empty grocery carts are lined up at the cashier's station, as if they're stuck in commuter-traffic, talking on their cell-phones, becoming angry, and tail-gating.

Sometimes pushing a grocery cart up and down aisles between shelves of stuff is a vaguely sad experience. One feels shabby, privileged, and absurd all at once. One feels as if one has pushed the cart into a short story by John Updike.

A grocery cart looks like a genial cage that's always amenable to escape.

Another theory is that grocery carts are baskets woven by artistic robots.

Yet another theory is that grocery carts come from Area 51.

Grocery carts mean too much and too little. That is the way it is with semiotics and with simple technology, so you had better get used to it.

Please return the grocery cart to the place where you are supposed to return the grocery cart. A grocery cart nearby is watching you.

Believing They Can Learn

For teachers of writing (composition) at almost every level but especially at the undergraduate level in college, the name "Mina Shaughnessy" is still one with which to conjure. Her book, Errors & Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing, which she published as Mina P. Shaughnessy in 1977 (Oxford University Press), remains a classic in the field, partly because it helped to change the way teachers look at students and at themselves and the way teachers look not just at mistakes students make in writing but at mistakes in general. (There's a Mina Shaughnessy Award now for the best book on the teaching of basic writing, as well as another Shaughnessy award for an article in the field.) In that decade, after all, people still referred to basic-writing courses in college as "Bonehead English." The name doesn't exactly denote respect for the students in the class--or, indeed, for the teacher.

Shaughnessy, who taught at the City University of New York, argued compellingly that teachers should see mistakes or errors as opportunities and that teachers need to place such errors in context. Here's an excerpt from the book. It's an excerpt that focuses on students who may be the first from their families to go to college, but the the advice is also broadly applicable:

"College both beckons and threatens them [first-generation college students], offering to teach them useful ways of thinking and talking about the world, promising even to improve the quality of their lives, but threatening at the same time to take from them their distinctive ways of interpreting the world, to assimilate them into the culture of academia without acknowledging their experience as outsiders.

At no pointis the task of representing both claims upon the student--the claims of his past and of his future--more nervously poised than at the point where he must be taught to write. Here the teacher, confronted by what at first appears to be a hopeless tangle of errors and inadequacies, must learn to see below the surface of these failures the intelligence and linguistic aptitudes of his students. And in doing so, he will himself become a critic of his profession and begin to search for wiser, more efficient ways of teaching young men and women to write.

For unless he can assume that his students are capable of learning what he has learned, and what he know teaches, the teacher is not likely to turn to himself as a possible source of his students' failures." (p. 292)

(Because Shaughnessy was writing in the late 1970s, she was accustomed to using the singular male pronoun to stand for everyone, whereas after the influence of non-sexist language, we're more used to seeing the plural [teachers; students; they] or "he or she").

In any event, I still value these passages and her book after all these years. And that last sentence in particular is a good one for teachers to remember. If teachers constantly blame students' failures only on the students, then something is probably haywire. Of course, it's just as counter-productive always to blame onself and one's teaching for things that go wrong, but it's always worth asking oneself what one might do better or differently to insure that some learning happens and to remind oneself that, yes, students are most capable of learning (in this case, to write) and that the errors are an opportunity to teach. Also, when students get the clear message that a teacher believes they can learn, they're in a better position to learn--in my opinion.