Poetry From Iran

Early in my college years, I corresponded briefly with an American woman my age who was living in Iran because her father worked there. If I recall correctly, the letters had to go through a general "APO" address first, and then on to Tehran. Not many years thereafter came the overthrow of the Shah and then what was known as "the hostage crisis." I was teaching in Germany when the hostages were released and flown to an air force base near Wiesbaden, across the Rhine from Mainz, where I was living.

Now it seems another revolution in Iran may be under way, although speculation seems to be outstripping knowledge, to say the least. And you know you are in a post-modern era when Twitter.com becomes a main conduit of information. Away from the television and radio, I found my thoughts turning to the poets in Iran. There must be thousand and thousands of them, and the Persian tradition of poetry is rich vast. The famous poet Rumi, who was apparently known as Jelaluddin Balkhi, was Persian, although he was born in Afghanistan, not in the region now known as the Islamic Republic of Iran. From The Essential Rumi, edited by Coleman Barks, I learned that Rumi's birthday is September 30, 1207. Eight-hundred years (plus) later, Rumi's poetry is as popular as ever, as well it should be.

At this moment, some of the poets must be out in the streets, some must be in rooms writing in response to events, and many must be engaged in both activities.

Here is a link to a nice site for Iranian poetry:

http://www.iranian.com

/Arts/poetry.html

On it I found a fine poem called "Four Things To Know" (great title) by a poet named Sasan Seifikar. I'll provide the opening in lines. For all four things to know, please visit the site. (Poets in Iran, be well.)



from Four things to know

Inspired by a poem from Attar

by Sasan Seifikar

If I had to reduce everything I know to four things
I would choose the following empowering insights
The first is this: do not worry about your stomach or money
But be concerned for your mind and heart, before it is too late

Heavy Metal Monk

I ran across a video from Reuters that features Cesare Bonizzi, an Italian friar and former missionary to Africa who performs Heavy Metal. No fooling! He records under the name Fratello Metallo. Here is a link to the video:

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=87126

The video put in mind William Everson, the poet and member, peripherally at least, of the Beat Generation. Everson was also known as Brother Antoninus, for he was a lay monk in the Catholic church for quite some time (I forget which order he belonged to). Everson defrocked himself--literally and figuratively--during a poetry reading at U.C. Davis in the late 1960s. He took his monk's robe off during the reading and announced he was not going to be a monk anymore. Also, Everson very much liked the music of Janis Joplin--more blues and rock than heavy metal, certainly, but in the same primal vein that appeals, apparently, to Fratello Metallo. Everson's books include Man-Fate and The Residual Years. Everson was also a master printer of books and a well known conscientious objector during the Second World War, as was William Stafford.

Slam Poetry: Capsule History

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I ran across a pithy history of Slam Poetry, the more or less competitive version of what's known as Spoken Word nowadays. Here is a link to the timeline:

http://www.slampapi.com/new_site/background/slam_timeline.htm

This history credits Marc Kelly Smith, a construction-worker in Chicago, with starting the Slam movement.

Smith now hosts poetry-shows on both Sirius and Xm radio (as the image above advertises).

If Slam Poetry is like other developments, movements, or "schools" in literary and poetic history, then its origins are no doubt in dispute. Nonetheless, let the words be spoken.

Bread, Oranges, Cadillac's Fin

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At Least I Left Bread and Oranges

At first I didn't think I'd be in
this poem, which set out to accumulate
words representing images neutrally--
blue conifer-hills, black flies pulsing
on a deer's bone, rocking red box
of a medics' truck, mineral-grin of
a Cadillac's fin. . . . The truth is

I didn't have another poem to go to,
so I visited this one. You came in
and discovered me sitting on the old
green couch. --And now there you go,
out the door, slam, and I can't
blame you, but I promise to be gone
by the time that you return, and
I did buy bread and oranges. They
are sitting on the counter.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Day Lily, China, Chinese

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My second twitter-poem [136 characters + the hash-tag #tl] concerns weather, China, Chinese (language), and the day lily. I don't know what a hash-tag is.


How many weathers are there in China, what is the Chinese word for the seventh day of the week, and what should we ask about a day lily?

Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley on Youtube

Thanks to film-maker Joe LaSac, Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley are now on Youtube, as dramatized by actors and imagined in a poem--and by a fine film-maker. Take a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naa3oK4zWxQ

My First Twitter-Poem

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I gather the Twitter phenomenon has led to the verb, "to tweet," which I guess means to post a message on Twitter. As everyone knows (I was among the last to learn this), a twitter-post (the noun must be "tweet") is limited to 140 characters.

Someone had the great idea of establishing a Twitter identity/site that features poems limited to 140 characters. The link is . . .

http://twitter.com/twitlaureate


I found the new poetic form to be irresistible. Here is my first attempt:

One hundred forty characters: a small town of letters, no mayor, no stop-lights, one grocery store, two bars. One fire truck--has flat tire.

There's so much to like about this form (not necessarily about my poem, I grant). It demands compression, and while you're composing, Twitter counts the characters for you, so you are writing and revising at the same time, as well as serving the muse, Arithmetic. I'm Matsuo Basho would not only have blogged but would have also tweeted or twittered or twicked or tweeted.

Because I'm as old as dirt (see dirt in robin's mouth above), I associate "tweet" with the song, "Rockin' Robin," in which "all the little birdies on Jay-Bird Street love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet." That song usually made me laugh.

The Invisible Book

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(the photo is a still from a cinematic version of The Invisible Man, but I forget which one--obviously a pretty cool one, though)
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The Invisible Book

He recently published an invisible book,
which sold quite well, although the figures
on that were invisible, too, so he was just
going on instinct. Every bookstore he entered
carried the book in a space between two other
books--sometimes mis-categorized, but so what?

Fond Implements was the title of the book,
and still is. It is a novel. You may acquire it
simply by pretending to hold a book in your hands
and read it. Start, if you will, with your own
imagined first sentence of Fond Implements
and continue imagining sentences for the equivalent
of 232 pages or so. I found the book to be
an excellent read. I highly recommend it.
A used copy is perfectly acceptable, of course.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Things I Heard Last Wednesday

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Like almost all writers of poetry, fiction, and drama (etc.), I write down what people say. I'm especially drawn to statements or questions I hear as I pass by people who are talking, so that in a sense I'm getting the quotation out of context. At other times, I simply write down things people say to me. For example, I might ask a worker in a grocery store a question about where an item might be found, and the response strikes me as not just informational but evocative, so later I write it down. Sometimes more writing springs from such notes; sometimes, not. The lists make up a kind of "pre-writing": raw material. But they can have their own appeal, too.


Things I Heard Last Wednesday

I did not want to take that out of my bank.
I wouldn't go outside with short bangs even
on Halloween.
I'll take a comparison to Lucille Ball as
a compliment any day.
The more your head is in the sink, the better.
You can't be cold.
They have a scholarship for schizophrenics.
I've never driven anything nice before.
Nutrition is near Produce but off to the left.
The archive belongs to the family, but
it's held by the company.
That doesn't mean he didn't call.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Cuba

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I remember a day during what is now known as "the Cuban Missile Crisis" when my father came home from work, mentioned something about the crisis, and had a very unusual, ashen look on his face. The look told me what I "needed" to know--at age 8 (roughly): this was serious stuff. Leap forward these many years later, and this morning's newspaper (wow, a newspaper that still exists) reports on two longtime Cuban spies being arrested. Well, fair enough; if someone spies for another nation, he or she must be ready to be arrested. But I do wonder what "intelligence" they gathered that is or was dangerous. I don't mean to excuse espionage, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to turn over almost as much information as a country like Cuba wanted. What, exactly, is such a country going to do with it? Doubtlessly, I'm naive, but I figure Cuba already knows where our military installations are (one is next door) and who its "enemies" are in Florida and elsewhere. To me, Cuba seems chiefly to be a small, impoverished island nation.
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Cuba

I've never been to Cuba, but I know several who
have. As a lad, I thought I'd be incinerated with
everyone because Kruschev and Kennedy almost got
us killed over nothing. Fidel's so tired, he's
traded in fatigues for peejays. The sun's rays
radiate Caribbean rocks. Let the last Cold-War
ice-cube melt. Pronounce the word as Coo-buh,
play some gin rummy while sipping rummed cola
in a folding chair. Let history's belly hang
out over tops of proletarian bluejeans and
garish tourist-shorts. Close Guantanamo, twice.
Focus on poverty and hurricanes in both
nations. That is to say, prioritize.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Stolen Photos

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His Photos Were Not His

The temporary celebrity wasn't celibate. He
deleted from "his" hard drive photos of himself
and others frolicking in "privacy." Digital
piracy ensued. A Dickensian clerk at the local
rag-and-computer-parts recycling shop recognized
the fellow and reconstituted images from the
celeb's impersonal computer, sold them, and
they enjoyed a viral notoriety on screens
around our sad and rocky globe. The celeb

and his publicist met the media and were
quoted. The clerk got fired and paid a
fine. There is no line. No one owns anything:
prophets have murmured this news to us over
the eras. Now the Internet has made their
knowledge common. Intellectual property
and private photos languish in the
Oxymoronic Lounge, sipping mocktails next to
an irrelevant highway. The celeb should have
hammered the hard drive with a sledge, but
paparazzi would have clicked a thousand images
of that, so there you go, and so it goes.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Kay Ryan In Second Term as U.S. Poet Laureate

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Kay Ryan is serving a second consecutive term as U.S. Poet Laureate. The position used to be known as the Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress.

Ryan's books include The Niagra River (2005), Say Uncle (2000), and Elephant Rocks (1996).

Ryan was born in San Jose, California, and she taught for many years at the College of Marin.

Here is a link to more information:

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2009/09-073.html

Shakespeare in Seattle

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A production of Shakespeare's MacBeth--actually it's Shakespeare's play as revised by the Bard's self-proclaimed son--will run from June 12 through June 27th at the Magnuson Park Theater in Seattle. For information about this unusual production, please follow the link:

http://macbeth.dramatech.net/about.htm

The castle pictured is in Scotland, not the Pacific Northwest, in case you wondering.

Picnic At Emily Dickinson's House

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(Logo: Emily Dickinson Museum)
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If you should find yourself in the vicinity of Amherst, Massachusetts, next weekend, you might want to visit the Emily Dickinson Museum, where a poetry picnic will occur on Saturday, June 13, from noon to 2:00 p.m. As the Museum's web site notes, two houses linked with Dickinson have been preserved: the homestead and her brother, Austin's, house, which is called the Evergreens. Here is a link to the site:


http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/

Arthur Symons' Poem On June

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Arthur Symons (1865-1945) may be best known for his short but influential book, The Symbolist Movement In Literature, which affected the work of Yeats and Eliot, among others. He was a poet as well as a critic, however. And he obviously knew a thing or two about hats.

Here is a poem from his book, Silhouettes (1892). Obviously, it's romantic, perhaps too sweet for some, and not surprisingly, it's been set to music; and yes, it rhymes "June" with "moon." Nice ending, though.

In The Fountain Court

The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June.
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June,
A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June.
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.


by Arthur Symons

Thomas Mann's Birthday

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Thomas Mann, German writer and philanthropist, was born on June 6 (1875). His novels aren't the easiest to read; they include Death In Venice, Doktor Faustus, and The Magic Mountain. The latter is my favorite by him. It's protagonist is Hans Castorp. Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929 but probably not on June 6th. He died in 1955.

Reciprocity

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According to the OED online, here is what "eavesdrop" means (not a surprising definition):

"To stand within the ‘eavesdrop’ of a house in order to listen to secrets; hence, to listen secretly to private conversation."

The earliest quoted example in the OED is from 1606, in case anyone asks or happens to be eavesdropping when you are discussing the word.
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Reciprocity


A man stepped out of a cafe,
holding a telephone-wafer
to one ear. I assumed he
left so as to be polite,
to secure a less fully
public space, and/or to
align the wafer with a
floating satellite. I
was already outside.

"In life," he said to
someone--and to anyone
within earshot, including
me, "there is a concept
called, 'reciprocity.'"

He paused to listen before
defining the term for his
intended interlocutor. Before
I began seriously to eavesdrop,
I left him to his conversation.

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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Harper Lee Turned 83

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Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, turned 83 in late April.

To Kill A Mockingbird was first published in 1960. It was memorably adapted to the cinema in 1962 (the image to the left is from the film), starring Gregory Peck, Brock Peters, and Mary Badham, among others.

The book remains Harper Lee's only published novel.

Here is a link to "her" web site:

http://www.harperlee.com/contact.htm

Sandra Bullock portrayed Lee in a film about Truman Capote (a lifelong friend of Lee's) and his book, In Cold Blood. The film is called Infamous but is the less famous cinematic version of the story, with Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Capote (in Capote) being the better known one. Toby Jones plays Capote in Infamous, which also features Daniel Craig.


Here is a link to more information about Infamous:

http://movies.about.com/od/everywordistrue/a/infamussb100606.htm

Night of the Open Mic

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When someone puts a microphone on a person, is the person "miked up"? I think so. But then if you participate in an event where anyone can come to the microphone and read, are you part of an "open-mic" night? Mike v. mic. The sound v. the spelling. Hmmmm.


Night of the Open Mic

I grew up in an era when voices
were wrapped in the rough velvet
of booze and cigarettes. Low purring
voices brought me news, commercial-
breaks, station-identifications,
travelogues, and live reports
through microphones, which were
large like the heads of sci-fi
insects. Now

everyone is miked-up. People speak
small ugly truths inadvertently during
commercial-break when a mic
is left open. Talk-show hosts are
their own guests and soak in their
logghorea. Men and women speak
into their lapels, their wrists, their
personal computers, their phones,
lamp-shades, and autos. The aural

symbols strummed out by
our vocal chords are broad-corded
and re-cast. Every phoneme is caught
like a metal filing on a magnet. Singers'
voices are bent into tune. Sound is synced
with virtual image effectually. Few listen
carefully--a dying, folksy art. But
every little sound is heard and horded.
The mic is always open in this age,
this long night. Whenever you speak,

you speak into a mic. Not just
wires but the air itself is tapped,
sounds distilled and bottled
into essence, evidence, and confession.
How close to the microphone should
I get? Such a quaint question. No
worries. The microphone is
always close to you; and open.
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Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Old Seagull

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Old Seagull

One old white seagull prowled wet grass
near brick buildings, looking for worms.
It walked arthritically and seemed chilled.

A lone, hunched seagull is a dignified
defeat, a sign of how hopeless hope is.
Was the bird's eyesight still good enough

to see worms? Did the bird ache? Do
seagulls fly back to the beach to die,
or do they get stranded on a street,

eaten by a crow or a raccoon? The
seagull was a general in exile,
a feathered Napoleon on Elba.

It was a heroic nun, a white flag
hanging from a wall of a blasted fort.
The gull seemed to know everything.

It kept its routine of life.
Walking past, I admired the bird,
which ignored me, which I admired.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom