Mid-Winter

Saturday poem

I Am Always

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

I love how all your friends are shy. You befriend them in order
to put them at ease, make them nervous, and put them
at ease again. I'll light a candle and think of a place I've been
to with you. And then I'll stop because the wind will be howling
and the cold snap will be unbearable, mostly, without you.
Like this red down coat my mother had in the '70s.
It made her look like the Michelin Man, even with her
long hair and bird bones, and I ripped the pocket
grabbing onto her in parking lots, waist high
and desperate. That coat is gone. I drew a skull and crossbones
across the back of it with a giant Sharpie and hung it above the garage,
and then it just blew away the very first day it was up there.
The view from here is Christmas lights and gravel, and maybe
a whiff of cinnamon and cigarettes. I don't want to go home.

[1/9/10]

I Have Seven Things to Tell You

1. I think I'm going to start putting something on my blog every Wednesday. This is the year in which I tell some version of the truth. And as Hunter S. Thompson said, "[A]nybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor." I do not emulate HST in other ways, but in this way (the commitment to a psychic anchor), I will. But don't worry. I'm not as jangled as all that.

2. This is the view out the window of my home office. The dirt on the window is not my fault-- it's between two panes of glass-- but it makes for an interesting photo.

3. Today I will finish preparing for tomorrow, which is my first day of spring semester teaching. I will be talking about "Coming of Age Narratives" and "American Literature, 1890-1929." There are so many things those categories could mean. I will narrow it down and narrow down until each topic fits within three pieces of papers; six novels; and a series of 75 minute discussions.

4. An opera singer moved in next door. He is doing scales right now. Maybe I should do some kind of vocalizing every morning. Or maybe some kind of ritualized movement. I could be like Allen Ginsberg in his kitchen doing tai chi.

5. I would like to take this class. I've been mulling over ideas for a poetry workshop I'd like to teach in which students put themselves in trances. I recently found out that Eleni Sikelianos hypnotized her poetry students herself! You are allowed to do such things in Colorado.

6. The night before last, I dreamed that I was on vacation with my little brother and a friend of his from junior high named William. Somehow, I was concerned that William had not brought the right clothing. When I woke up, it was strange to realize that I was no longer on vacation with the two of them and that they are no longer the age I dreamed them to be (which was maybe 16 years old). However, I quickly accepted it and was no longer in that reality by the time I finished brushing my teeth.

7. Next year at this time, I will likely be somewhere else (in a new apartment, if not a new city). This is due to neighbors who stomp and to the academic job market, which is also inconsiderate. (The opera singer doesn't bother me.) I am trying to figure out where I've lived the longest. It may be Lawrence, Kansas, where I lived for about seven years in my late teens and early twenties, with one year away. Can that be right?

Happy Wednesday!

Things I Still Have

Our New Year

I’ve cleaned off a space on my desk big enough to riff

on you twenty times. By which I mean I’m on the bus

back from Boston, thinking of your eyes and mouth and hands.

This poem, you may have noticed, has an I and a you. This poem

is the daughter we don’t have. She’s a curly-headed implicated

implicator. She’s American. She’ll be oddly happy up through

the age of ten, then suffer seven years of anger. Blame her mother;

blame her father. Emerge from flame knowing the different

music. American. This is our new year of learning urgency

and a kind of loose-headed, courageous heart. Some people think you

shouldn’t use “courageous” in a poem. But consider this:

Near the end of Ingrid Bergman’s life, she and her friend

Liv Ullman went to the movies. Fifteen minutes in, Ingrid leans

over and says, “I don’t have time for this,” then gets up and leaves.

This is all just to say, there’s a wild low singing under all these naps,

and from now on I’m telling the truth. From now on, I’m telling

some version of the truth.

Movies I've Watched in 2011 So Far

image from Flixster.com

Exit Through the Gift Shop [First movie of 2011. Interesting-ish; hoax-ish]
Shutter Island [better than I thought it would be]
Alice in Wonderland [eh]
Precious [eek!]
Audrey Rose [1970s supernatural thriller with a very creepy Anthony Hopkins]
Moon [Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell.]
Stephen Fry in America [BBC series. I love the way he talks.]
Patti Smith: Dream of Life [I liked watching her paint and seeing her talk to her parents.]
Monty Python: Almost the Truth [delightful documentary watched with my delightful friend in Boston]

I also just watched American Masters: Jeff Bridges. I see some Starman in my future. Maybe American Heart. The Fisher King? [And: How much do I love The Last Picture Show? A lot.]

Three from today

Pema Chodron

The New Year

New Year's Eve: Chimay and cheese and heirloom tomatoes. Twilight Zone. New Year's Day: Sushi. Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.

Finalist

My book of poems (the more prose poem-y version of it) was a finalist for the Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. Congratulations to the winners and all the finalists and semi-finalists!

Here I Am

Merry Christmas, all you elves out in internet land.

I'm at my mom's. I might go see True Grit later.

I am in Florida

37th Annual New Year's Day Marathon Reading

I'll be reading with Clif's trio at about 6:45.

January 1, 2011
2:00 pm
Saturday

The Poetry Project
at St. Marks Church
131 E. 10th Street (and 2nd Ave)

poetryproject.com

Poets and Performers for 2011 include: John Giorno, Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Philip Glass, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Eric Bogosian, Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye, Vito Acconci, Foamola, Anselm Berrigan, Ariana Reines, Peter Gizzi, Liz Willis, Ted Greenwald, Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, The Church of Betty, Thom Donovan, Tim Griffin, Todd Colby, Tom Savage, David Shapiro, Jonas Mekas, Josef Kaplan, Judith Malina, Albert Mobilio, Alex Abelson, Maria Mirabal, Bill Kushner, David Freeman, David Kirschenbaum, Diana Rickard, Don Yorty, Dorothea Lasky, Douglas Dunn, Alan Gilbert, Alan Licht w/ Angela Jaeger, Charles Bernstein, Christopher Stackhouse, Citizen Reno, Cliff Fyman, Corina Copp, Aaron Kiely, Adeena Karasick, Bill Zavatsky, Bob Holman, Robert Fitterman, Rodrigo Toscano, Brenda Iijima, Brendan Lorber, Brett Price, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Curtis Jensen, Dael Orlandersmith, David Vogen, Derek Kroessler, Diana Hamilton, ARTHUR’S LANDING, CAConrad, Akilah Oliver, Douglas Piccinnini, John S. Hall, Samita Sinha, Sara Wintz, Secret Orchestra with special guest Joanna Penn Cooper, Shonni Enelow, Bob Rosenthal, Brenda Coultas, John Yau, Julian T. Brolaski, Evelyn Reilly, Filip Marinovich, Douglas Rothschild, Drew Gardner, Eleni Stecopoulos, Elinor Nauen, Eve Packer, Jo Ann Wasserman, Joanna Fuhrman, Dustin Williamson, E. Tracy Grinnell, Ed Friedman, Edwin Torres, Eileen Myles, Elliott Sharp, Emily XYZ, Erica Hunt, Erica Kaufman, Evan Kennedy, Joe Elliot, Joel Lewis, Frank Sherlock, Gillian McCain, Greg Fuchs, Janet Hamill, Jeremy Hoevenaar, Jessica Fiorini, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Jim Behrle, Julianna Barwick, Julie Patton, Michael Lydon, Lisa Jarnot, Maggie Dubris, Marcella Durand, Marty Ehrlich, Merry Fortune, Michael Cirelli, Kristen Kosmas, Laura Elrick, Lauren Russell, Leopoldine Core, Nina Freeman, Paolo Javier, Patricia Spears Jones, Paul Mills (Poez), Michael Scharf, Mike Doughty, Karen Weiser, Lewis Warsh, Linda Russo, Penny Arcade, Peter Bushyeager, Rebecca Moore, Mónica de la Torre, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Nathaniel Siegel, Nick Hallett, Nicole Peyrafitte, Pierre Joris & Miles Joris-Peyrefitte, Kathleen Miller, Katie Degentesh, Kelly Ginger, Ken Chen, Kim Lyons, Kim Rosenfield, India Radfar, Tonya Foster, Stephanie Gray, Susan Landers, Tony Towle, Tracie Morris, Valery Oisteanu, John Coletti, Rachel Levitsky, Edmund Berrigan, Jamie Townsend, Macgregor Card, Wayne Koestenbaum, Will Edmiston, Yoshiko Chuma, Nicole Wallace, Arlo Quint, Stacy Szymaszek and more T.B.A

General admission $20/Students & Seniors $15/Members $10.

This week

I Have a Few Questions for You

(with apologies to Uncle Walt)

Aren't we all just tigers and lambs with austere mullets, serious zebras with Elvis hairdos?

Don't you have something better to do with your mortal time?

Didn't you eat a bagel half with wondrous capers, red onion, etc.? Wasn't the going difficult-- all that chewing-- and blessed?

Have you studied so long to be one of them? Have you been born enough?

Isn't there always a stray remark lurking to help you plumb the depths?

Didn't you tense your shoulders in gladness, keeping them near your ears?

Weren't you always one of the chosen?

Weren't you a pilgrim alone, with only mysterious racket to keep you company (that hammering, that slamming vault door, that phantom semi honking)?

Didn't you glimpse the curve of the road through the newly bare trees and wonder what amphitheater this was now? Didn't you then recognize the road and say, "Oh, it's the road"?

Didn't the lion lie down with the lamb? Weren't both of them you?

Giving Thanks

(for Stella)

When I woke up, my thoughts were oracular.
There's so much I've yet to be grateful for, things
like circumstance and dogged joy and birth and--
I'll say it-- death. (Is approaching grateful
the same as grateful?) This is the holiday of, "Oh,
I forgot to notice you and your labored breathing
there in the corner." But really, I did notice you--
how your eyes seemed to point in two different
directions sometimes; your hound
tendency to just want to keep moving in
a straight line, nose toward the ground, away
from the house; how you hunkered in
joy and smiled a little and were your own fur-
covered secret of small pleasures and
longing and some smelling, flop-eared version
of love. What if on your last day, you got
a bath and were talked to sweetly and chewed
two of three bones you were offered?
What of being with ones who saw you young
and saw you old, who bailed you out of jail,
who lay on the floor with your animal body,
breathing?

Rivers and Tides

A clip from the documentary Rivers and Tides, about the artist Andy Goldsworthy.

Clif's trio's EP is out!

There's a poem by me inside.

Insomnia Poem

(for Todd Colby)

I’m like some freak who smells like moon tea, if only spirit
had not abandoned me, if only I could harness the power
of a single day’s frittering, I’d come back from the fourth dimension
and tell myself deep truths from there, flickering in the doorway,
saying, “Chill” and “Recognize.” I am high up in my home, bereft
of as many comforting textiles as I’d like to own, but rich in dark
haunted tree limbs moving of their own volition. Cradled
by more encroaching fog and nefarious 2 a.m. subway track
singing than I even begin to deserve. I am mourning the twentieth
century. Kids these days know nothing of Magic Fingers,
of luminous clock faces slowly going dark next to twin beds
as a dogwood tree comes on outside, shining the yard
bright in one spot, on the loneliest night in the twentieth century.

Weekends