Cortazar’s Cronopios y Famas was a terrific, odd read. Sadly, my sixth edition from New Directions has page 69 reprinted on page 71, and so I’m missing a page that begins one of the stories in the baffling third section.

If you don’t have this book, get it and read the second chapter. Immediately. “The Tiger Lodgers” is brilliant, and the final story in “Unusual Occupations” is flat-out genius.

This sounds like hyperbole.

Bedtime. Hyperbolic dreams await.

(I won’t get a day off to write part of my essay tomorrow after all. Maybe Thursday. Boo.)

Two annotations down, one to go. I spent the better part of the day with Donald Justice, and feel like I have a pretty good handle on how he’s using repetition for both stasis and motion in “Psalm and Lament.” I have Tuesday off from work, so Weldon Kees is up next. I won’t be working on the essay at all tomorrow, because I’ll be in South Carolina for Granny’s 90th birthday. But, just in case, I’ll have Poetic Closure in the car with me. Just in case.

Have a wonderful day, Internet friends. I’ll see you on the flipside.

I know, you often think to yourself: “what is in Ross White’s mailbox today?” Well, I can answer that question for you.

First up, the new record by They Might Be Giants, entitled The Else. I ordered it off of their web site a few days ago, because they sent a note saying that there was a limited-edition EP included with the album. kept buying things from their web site is a Catch-22; the prices are affordable, but the shipping is extreme. Did I really need for this album to arrive from UPS? Not really. I would’ve been just as happy had it arrived in five to nine business days.

Next, two books from Amazon. One is entitled Poetic Closure: a Study of How Poems End by Barbara Herrnstein Smith. in particular looking for to the chapter on repetition. The other book is full of what looks like micro fiction — Julio Cortazar, Cronopios y Famas. All I really want to you about that book is that saying it into my voice recognition software has made me decide that I will never want to speak Spanish words to this program again.

Horse Less Press was good enough to send me Abraham Lincoln’s Death Scene, a chapbook by Zachary Schomburg. Granted, I sent them five dollars to do so, but still, it was good of them to send it. I finished reading about half of this book, and the verdict is still out. kept or is the phrase, “the jury is still out”? I can never remember. Something is still out there. It is an opinion.

Extras and Weeds? All in the same night? Heavenly!

I’m in a hotel tonight. I don’t tend to write well in hotels, but I’ll be plugging away at “Psalm and Lament” after dinner. If you see me on instant messenger, interrupt. I’ll be OK with it.

Preliminary findings: the repetition is useful. It’s usually the variation where the motion happens… but it can’t be propelled forward as forcefully without the repetitive stimulus.

I’m thinking that, if it’s allowable, I might look at Pinker’s The Langauge Instinct to speak to why repetition is so powerful. It’s fundamental to how we acquire language and I think that repetition in poetry speaks to that. Information repeated has a primal and incantatory power even when the repetition is subdued.

I’m burning the new Queens of the Stone Age for the trip out. Other motorists, if you see me in your rear view mirror, I’m not talking to myself. I’m rocking your face off.

For those keeping score:

Satirical Limericks 4, Great Poems 1, Parables 0

Famous Poems Re-written as Limericks

To wit:

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still.

I’m now eleven pages into my essay, which has been quite pleasant to write thus far. I’m hoping to knock out a minimum of one page on Donald Justice’s “Psalm and Lament” tonight to stay on target.

That’s the only one of the poems I’m working on that I haven’t posted yet, so here it is.

Psalm and Lament

In memory of my mother (1897-1974)
Hialeah, Florida

The clocks are sorry, the clocks are very sad.
One stops, one goes on striking the wrong hours.

And the grass burns terribly in the sun,
The grass turns yellow secretly at the roots.

Now suddenly the yard chairs look empty, the sky looks empty,
The sky looks vast and empty.

Out on Red Road the traffic continues; everything continues.
Nor does memory sleep; it goes on.

Out spring the butterflies of recollection,
And I think that for the first time I understand

The beautiful ordinary light of this patio
And even perhaps the dark rich earth of a heart.

(The bedclothes, they say, had been pulled down.
I will not describe it. I do not want to describe it.

No, but the sheets were drenched and twisted.
They were the very handkerchiefs of grief.)

Let summer come now with its schoolboy trumpets and fountains.
But the years are gone, the years are finally over.

And there is only
This long desolation of flower-bordered sidewalks

That runs to the corner, turns, and goes on,
That disappears and goes on

Into the black oblivion of a neighborhood and a world
Without billboards or yesterdays.

Sometimes a sad moon comes and waters the roof tiles.
But the years are gone. There are no more years.

–Donald Justice

Those are all couplets– pardon the line wraps.

Jeremy just told me the story that Callie happened to mention my name in conversation and a co-worker said, “Ross White the poet?” I think this is the first time that’s happened to me. I’m thrilled, too… the noun at the end of that question is usually far more harsh.

It is no secret around the UNC campus that I love me some Matthea Harvey, so I was thrilled thrilled thrilled when an unnamed friend who works in an unnamed retail location brought me the uncorrected proof of this:

It is delicious. Well, the parts I have read. Much of it is Harvey’s delectable brand of prose poem, but when the reporter in her yields to the lyricist, you get something like this short poem:

Out of Order

Today it’s about truth and hope
and there are no ha-ha’s
between me and the living.
World, I’m no one
to complain about you.

The part of me (which may be all of me) which loves a good one-liner was thrilled to see her include this short one.

You Have My Eyes

Give them back.

Some good publishing news today: I have a short piece (some say fiction, some say poetry, I say tomato) in this month’s edition of Rumble.

This arrived in today’s mail (two copies in fact– one is for loaning to friends… but only the most trusted of friends):

Expect a few light days, blogwise. My carpal tunnel is acting up somewhat, and though speech recognition works fairly well, I have to do some mousing and typing for corrections. So, I’ll be focused on the essay.

Found Joe Wenderoth’s “The Endearment,” which was published as a chapbook by a press that went under. Wave Books bought the remaining stock, and I ordered two copies from them today. I like Wave Books quite a lot: they make keen Poetry Bus t-shirts and they have a farm where writers can work four hours a day in exchange for lodging while they write. I have suggested that Marielle do this. Also, they have published some poems by Lee Fulton in The Bedazzler.

Though I told myself I would take a day off before jumping right back into the poetic pursuits, by 3 PM I was already starting to think about the essay. I needed to make a visit to the doctor, because my arm has been bothering me somewhat, and to distract myself, I figured I would take a book not related to my work. The newest book on the shelf (well, at least the newest one I hadn’t read– Tua gave me a copy of Van Jordan’s new book, Quantum Lyrics, which I finished before I left Swannanoa) was James Longenbach’s The Resistance to Poetry.

While I was in the waiting room, though, I couldn’t help but make connections between one of his essays on line and the elements of syntactic repetition I’ll be looking at. His breakdown of how varying the ways in which syntax is parsed or broken across lines has direct relevance to the difficult syntax and enjambments of Merwin’s “Paul.”

So, since my pleasure reading had turned out to be essay reading, I went ahead and ditched the idea that I would give myself a full day off, and began writing a part of the essay this evening. I’m about two and a half pages in, which gets me to about line 12 of the poem. And I don’t feel like I’ve really gotten started yet.

I don’t think I’ll produce a monolith and then edit it down all semester, but I don’t think a 30 page essay is going to present a single problem at all.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a day off from poetry. My inbox at work is about 120 messages more full than it should be.

Here’s the Merwin poem, which was previously buried in my comments section.

Paul

Up the sea-dark avenue
at two in the morning a shadow
comes shouting oh
you mother-fucker I hate you Paul
echoes of feet and then
I hate you I hate you Paul

the old moon is sinking through
clouds beyond high wires and cornices
the buildings creak
drifting on the tunnelled hour the call
bounces ahead along
the street like a fleeing ball

there after each of the few
cars has passed over its words Paul you
can’t get away
I hate you with my feet in the Paul
street like a bell I know
you are there you nowhere Paul

I am coming after you
whatever you do whatever you
think I hate you
across the street into the doors all
the way through the frozen
windows up against the wall

listen to me I hate who
you are nobody else will ever
hate you the way
I do I always hated you Paul
the whole time thinking you
could hold out on me that small

invisible you but to
me listen there was nothing to you
I was onto
you fooling with me your slick tricks all
the while and I hate you
where you are everywhere Paul

I go on hating you through
the roar of the Paul subway the red
lights at the Paul
cross streets out of sight into the Paul
night that cannot be touched
nor brought back by hate at all.

That’s originally from Travels. Thanks, Metafilter.

Home. Exhausted.

Does anyone happen to know which volume of Merwin’s “Paul” was originally in? No luck on Google– but I am tired enough that I’m probably not searching wisely.

Boo.

Residency ends soon. I am completely wiped out and will need a day or two to recuperate before I begin the essay. I’m 90% certain that the third poem I’ll add to the essay is Donald Justice’s “Psalm and Lament”– I just need to get home and re-read it. I could be very happy writing about Justice, though, very happy.

I leave this residency a much more confident reader. I still have a great way to go as a reader of poetry, but I feel right now like I have at least the basic tools to evaluate a poem and can have a good conversation with much better readers than myself. I still prefer to experience a poem with others, in a conversation, to reading it alone, if I am to make a strong critical judgment. But I’m getting better.

I am extraordinarily grateful to this faculty for their support. Several took time to help me individually, despite the fact that I am not their student. Everyone here comports themselves with such grace until such time as the real socializing begins. And by then, I too am ready to goof off some.

I see in everything how much my previous teachers have taught me, and hope that I make them proud when we are here together. I don’t think I did in the O’Hara bookshop– a class I enjoyed a great deal and learned a great deal from. O’Hara is the kind of slippery voice that I do not read well yet. Room to improve. Always room to improve. I think I will read Lunch Poems a fourth time this semester. The bookshop has given me new tools.

How can anyone bring themselves to leave before graduation? Do they not wish to revisit one more time what they are here for?

Anna Clark, I am thinking of you this afternoon.

How could I have failed to realize that my favorite hate poem is perfect for my essay? Yes, folks, I come back again to W.S. Merwin’s “Paul.” If it’s something that the faculty would approve, I would commit to it right this second, yes I would. It is the only poem thus far that I have felt this strongly about.

Weldon Kees, who many of my students will remember well, may be another. Read this beauty, which Heather sagely reminded me about.

THE BEACH IN AUGUST

The day the fat woman
In the bright blue bathing suit
Walked into the water and died,
I thought about the human
Condition. Pieces of old fruit
Came in and were left by the tide.

What I thought about the human
Condition was this: old fruit
Comes in and is left, and dries
In the sun. Another fat woman
In a dull green bathing suit
Dives into the water and dies.
The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.

We dry and die in the sun
While the seascape arranges old fruit,
Coming in with the tide, glistening
At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
In a nondescript bathing suit,
Swims to a pier. A tall woman
Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.

Those two poems suit me so well. If I could find another dark stunner, I would be thrilled. Thanks to all who have made suggestions thus far; keep them coming! Even if I don’t use them, I’m reading them.

I don’t think it’s going to get much more official: my essay topic for the semester is “Repetitive Stasis and Repetitive Motion.” It will need a better topic before it’s all said and done, but that should get me started.

The difficult task now is to do an essay that doesn’t just focus on what I have learned already or congeal the last year’s worth of thought on the subject (because I have thought about it… a lot), but an essay that continues to drill down into the particulars in ways I’ve not yet thought of. I had my meeting with Ellen today, and I think she thought I was overly focused on crafting a beautiful essay, at the expense of that discovery. I did come off that way, I think because it hadn’t occurred to me that I would do anything but continue to apply this topic to my own work and find ways of improving. I desperately hope for a good night’s sleep tonight; I have an incredible enthusiasm right now but my body and mind are so tired right now that I cannot express it appropriately or put it to good use.

Today and tomorrow I will spend some time sharpening up the description for Tuesday’s faculty meeting and will likely put together a list of 10-15 possible poems for inclusion, which Heather and I can winnow down to 3-4 before I go. Feeling that the topic is a lock is freeing, though– I am finally focused on one thing rather than three possibilities, and my need for some definition is met. The particulars can fall into place quickly now, so that the processing may begin.

Foolishly, I brought only two books to the residency that are not by faculty. Why did I not bring the poems I am considering? Some are online, but some are not.

Do you have a poem that uses repetition that you love love love? Do tell me.

Some terrific lectures so far: Brooks Haxton, Alan Williamson, Stephen Dobyns. I have yet to be disappointed by anything. Surely it will happen. Surely it will. I will not bet on it.

I’m working this semester with Heather McHugh, who in one hour blew my mind completely. By 5 PM today, I felt like a husk of a person, which seems antithetical to the idea that you come to school to fill up on knowledge. But today was one of those intense and bizarre days where you’re tugged in twenty different directions, and for a time, you’re able to go in all of them. Already I feel like I will need more time to reflect on this residency than I have in the past.

Dear blog,

I have not fallen off the face of the earth, but I have gone up to Swannanoa for my MFA residency, which feels at times like pretty much the same thing. But I cannot express how grateful I am to be in the company of such varied and talented people. I feel lucky that I get the chance to serve the role I do, which is sort of a cross between a 900 number and a guidance counselor for my closest friends in the program. I am blessed with the opportunity to work with a supervisor that I have a great deal of respect for, and who is kind of a ridiculous genius. I will be tired tomorrow morning, and probably every morning that I am here. I will walk to breakfast in joy.

I have only just begun to discover Larry Levis. I have been assured that not reading his work up until now constitutes a grave sin. I atone.

I just saw Scott’s announcement that he is heading back to New York, a move that seems to have become obvious to him only after it became obvious to most of the rest of us. But I will miss Scott a great deal; the best chapters in DSI were co-authored with him (or a ghost writer representing his interests). All of the best years of that experience don’t happen if Scott doesn’t drive down from Norfolk that first weekend, still not quite certain that he should be allowed to drive at all. He is now an excellent driver.

I did not plan to blog tonight, but I became afraid, dear blog, that without you, Emma’s blog might become lonely, and I wouldn’t want that for a blog so young. I should catch up with correspondence with all manner of friends, Emma and others, but time doesn’t seem to permit such things when I’m in the weird vortex that WWC represents.

The Swannanoa Gatherers arrive Sunday. Send firearms. Please.

Just finished up a conference call for work, and I think it’s time to spend some more time with poems. I have already read the work from my workshop group a couple times, but I’m making comments tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Does it seem like I’m procrastinating? I’ll admit to procrastinating on the annotation, but last summer I made all my comments super-early, and by the time I got to the residency I couldn’t remember what some of the comments meant. For this, I find it best to keep it fresh.

Ross White: Keepin’ It Fresh Since Winter 2007

God, Amazon one-click is dangerous. I just ordered David Ignatow’s Selected Poems and I didn’t even have to THINK about it.

I don’t apologize for calling him out last night. But since Matthew Olzmann’s name has appeared so recently in this blog, you should read one of his poems.

Hell, while I’m at it, let’s Google-stalk a couple of my other poet-friends:
Ruba Ahmed
Laurie Capps
Maudelle Driskell
Justin Gardiner
Jynne Dilling Martin
Leslie Shipman

Many of my other friends can easily be stalked via the blogroll at left.

Other than my stalkings, I have spent the evening re-shelving and alphabetizing books in my office, in preparation for another semester of working my tail off. I did something I’ve never done last night– wrote a paper using voice recognition software. It was tremendously helpful– I got a lot out, and then did more revision than normal. I think just forcing myself to talk my way through the poem gave me the opportunity to look at my topic– stasis and the moment of binding– a little more thoroughly, and perhaps in a different way than I would have if I’d typed it up. When I type papers, I tend to go very slowly and deliberately, and then just revise once. Last night was wholly different. And cool.