VRZHU bullets of pure love

Margaret Atwood's "The Door"

Because I am impatient as hell, I ordered Margaret Atwood's new collection of poetry, The Door, from Amazon.ca.The book won't be released in the states until early November, but I have the Canadian edition in my hot little hands right now. Atwood's poetry is often overlooked because of her bestselling and prize-winning novels like, The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace, but I can assure you that her poetry is just as good if not better. The Door is her first collection since 1995's brilliant Morning in the Burned House. I was beginning to wonder if she would publish another collection. It was worth the wait, although the tone of this collection is not quite what I expected.

Morning in the Burned House was a devastating arc dealing mostly with Atwood's beloved father's battle with Alzheimers disease. The uncertainty, fear and grief were sharp as a knife and many of the poems in the collection still bring a lump to my throat. The Door ranges from the whimsical to the political, with ironic twists and lyrical phrasing. While there are lines that will still make you catch your breath, there is a looseness in both the construction and choice of words than I've never seen in Atwood's work. She's always written in prose style, but it seems more pronounced here. Sadly, there are also a few duds...some that wouldn't even cut high school lit mag mustard. Luckily, the good poems outweigh the clunkers.

Some of the most pointed poems in The Door are about the nature of poets and poetry readings. Like this from "Poetry Reading":

Watching the poet - the well-known poet -
ransacking his innards, laying out
his full stock of destructive thoughts
and shameful lusts,
his stale hatreds, his weak but shrill ambitions,
you don't know whether to be scornful or grateful:
he's doing our confession for us.

Atwood also expertly marries "nature" poetry with the personal, finding the sexual and sensual, horror and humanity in animals and plants in the landscape around us. Her take on the political climate is subtle and doesn't choose sides - except peace. This is from "White Cotton T-Shirt":

White cotton T-shirt: an innocent garment then.
It made its way to us from the war, but we didn't know that.
For us it was the vestment of summer,
whiter than white, shining with whiteness
because it had been washed in blood, but we didn't know that,
and in the cropped sleeve, rolled up tightly
into a cuff, were tucked the cigarettes,
also white within their packet, also innocent,
as were white panties, white convertibles,
white-blond brush-cuts,
and the white, white teeth of the lilting smiles
of the young men.

Atwood, who will celebrate her 68th birthday in November, also faces her own aging and mortality with a sense of ironic humor. From "One Day You Will Reach..."

Instead of fear, you'll be handed
a kind of dutiful respect
that isn't really serious
and will find yourself and object
of secret jocularity
like a preposterous expensive hat.

Like many of her previous poems, Atwood often ends a poem with a question, leaving the reader to find their own answer and meaning to to the words that came before. It's interactive in the most sublime way. In "The Weather," Atwood wonders if mankind is to blame for destruction by wind and water that never mentions New Orleans, but it must have been on her mind.

It's blind and deaf and stupendous,
and has no mind of its own.
Or does it? What if it does?
Suppose you were to pray to it,
what would you say?

Out of the 51 poems, maybe 10 are tepid, but even Atwood's lesser work is better than the majority of the poets publishing today. There are cliche phrases and images in several that will make you wince. In "Mourning for Cats" (the title alone is circumpsect), Atwood laments "fuzzy and trusting" lost pets that are "stashed somewhere near the heart." I love animals, but this poem makes Atwood sound like one of those old single ladies who lives with 80 cats. Luckily, these are few and far between.

Make sure to put The Door at the top of your wish list. I leave you with this haunting stanza from the title poem:

The door swings open:
O god of hinges,
god of long voyages,
you have kept the faith.
It's dark in there.
You confide yourself to the darkness.
You step in.
The door swings closed.

Madeleine L'Engle Remembered

I was so sad to hear that L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle In Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet and A Wind in the Door had died yesterday at age 88. These books are touchstones for me. L'Engle's kind of sci-fi and fantasy appealed to me on so many levels. She was the original JK Rowling. The first section of my recently finished collection,Wake, is called The Tesseract, inspired by these novels.

A devout Christian, L'Engle used Biblical themes and ideas, but with a fantasy and decidedly sci-fi edge. Her famous trilogy -- later expanded -- is often compared to C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles, but for my money, A Wrinkle In Time and the books that followed, were always a more entertaining read. The adventures of the Murray children across time and space were a delight, and I especially loved the rebellious Meg.Most people call these "children's books", but L'Engle hated that term, and so do I. These books, to paraprhase Whitman, contain multitudes. If you've never read them, or if you want something wonderful to read with your kids, I cannot recommend anything more highly.

Sharing Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds appearing on HBO's Def Poetry Jam reading her hilarious Self Portrait, Rear View. If you've never read Olds, check out out selected poems, Strike Sparks. She's another one of those poets who continue to inspire me daily and her work is always close by my desk.

Finding Anne Sexton

I'm always curious as to how poets find their inspirations. I discovered Anne Sexton via Peter Gabriel's brilliant song, Mercy Street, from his 1986 album, So. Using images from Sexton's life and one of her final poems, 45 Mercy Street, Gabriel crafted one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Over 20 years later, this song and Sexton's work still move me...and make me want to write.

Mercy Street
for Anne Sexton

looking down on empty streets, all she can see
are the dreams all made solid
are the dreams made real

all of the buildings, all of the cars
were once just a dream
in somebody's head

she pictures the broken glass, pictures the steam
she pictures a soul
with no leak at the seam

let's take the boat out
wait until darkness
let's take the boat out
wait until darkness comes

nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
nowhere in the suburbs
in the cold light of day

there in the midst of it so alive and alone
words support like bone

dreaming of mercy st.
wear your inside out
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms again
dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms

pulling out the papers from drawers that slide smooth
tugging at the darkness, word upon word

confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
to the priest - he's the doctor
he can handle the shocks

dreaming of the tenderness - the tremble in the hips
of kissing Mary's lips

dreaming of mercy st.
wear your insides out
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms again
dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
looking for mercy
in your daddy's arms

mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
mercy, mercy, looking for mercy

Anne, with her father is out in the boat
riding the water
riding the waves on the sea

Loving Laurie Anderson by Collin Kelley

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One of the questions I'm often asked as a poet is about influences. Some poets find this question tired and boring, but I think it still has some merit. Of course, if your poetic influences are all old, dead white men then the answer is going to be a snooze. While I think I'm pretty well-read when it comes to poets both dead and alive, much of my poetry is inspired by music, films and performance art. The great Laurie Anderson is one of my earliest influences. When I first heard "O Superman" in the 1980s and finally bought Big Science, which has just been re-released in an enhanced anniversary edition by Nonesuch Records, I knew I was listening to more than just a musician. Laurie is a poet.

Her imagery and command of language is second to none. Whether she's talking about globalization or why she can't make the clock on her VCR stop blinking, her insight is razor sharp. The mundane becomes sinister, especially when she adds the dramatic music from her electric violin or bank of synthesizers. If you want to feel the hairs rise on the back of your neck, pick up her live album from 2001, recorded in NYC just after Sept. 11. She does not shy away from her most political songs and the line in "O Superman" where she intones, "Here come the planes, they're American planes, made in America..." takes on a new relevance no one could have ever imagined.

The clip above from YouTube is Laurie performing at Lincoln Center on her current tour. She's political and in rare form on these two tracks "Only an Expert" and "Maybe If I Fall." If you've never listened to Laurie or have lost track of her lately, check out her website at www.laurieanderson.com.

Finding Poetry in Film by Collin Kelley

I am a film junkie. Going to the movies -- or watching them at home -- is one of my greatest pleasures. I confess to being a slave to my Netflix queue. I won't lie to you: I'm watching more movies at home these days. Since films arrive on DVD just a few months after the theatrical run, in most cases I can wait. Among my friends, we have a new shorthand for a movie we want to see, but don't want the expense and hassle of seeing at the cinema: "That looks like a Netflix."

While my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia claims to be an "international city," the local movie houses sometimes miss a good indie or foreign film. Or if it does show here, it's for a week and then -- poof! -- it's gone. Thanks to home video, I've discovered films that I would have never had the chance to see. Movies continue to influence my poetry. When I was in LA last month for a series of readings, I was staying in a hotel near the airport and I could see the city stretching out before me. I also couldn't sleep. I was having a Lost in Translation moment, and that sleepless night led me to start a poem on a piece of hotel stationary. Sometimes I keep my notebook handy when I'm watching a film just in case a good line or quote or thought presents itself.

In some cases, the films themselves are poetry. The movie that comes immediately to mind is Sally Potter's Yes. The entire film is, literally, poetry. The dialog is written in variations on iambic pentameter and is absolutely compelling. Only Sally Potter (who helmed Orlando and The Tango Lesson) could have written this script...she's a genius filmmaker. Joan Allen plays an Irish-American woman (known only as She) having an affair with a Middle-Eastern man (Simon Abkarian), who is just called He. The affair evolves into a confrontation over religion, politics and sex. James Joyce's Ulysses is evoked in the story, especially Molly Bloom's closing, orgasmic soliloquy (...I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.)

What is really fascinating on the DVD is the documentary called "Finding Scene 54," which the entire film hinges on - a devastating confrontation between She and He in a parking garage as they hurl insults at each other: terrorist, imperialist, pig, bitch. The emotional intensity of Joan Allen is really something to behold as she transforms into this stateless character, having left the troubles of Belfast as a young girl, growing up in America and now living in London. The final day of rehearsal for this scene took place on the day American invaded Iraq, and Sally Potter's despair over the news is raw. The film takes on a whole new urgency. I watched Yes twice and was mesmerized. A stunning achievement in poetry and film.

An even more obscure film is Jill Godmillow's Waiting for the Moon, a fictionalized account of a few months in 1936 in the life of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Their life and work at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris -- as well as a camping trip with Picasso's lover Fernande Olivier and poet Guillaume Apollinaire -- are rendered in delicate, quiet scenes. Stein (Linda Bassett) and Toklas (a perfectly cast Linda Hunt) are at a crisis in their relationship, as Stein discovers she might be dying of an incurable disease, but refuses to share her fears (or the doctor's prognosis) with Toklas. The film is full of spare, beautiful moments: Apollinaire's riveting campfire tale of eating wild, and possibly poisonous mushrooms, with Jean Cocteau and sitting up all night watching the stars, waiting for their death; Stein's touching attempt to say good-bye to Toklas with a tale of an Irish stable worker whose only wish is to return to Dublin; and Ernest Hemingway's (Bruce McGill) drunken rant to Stein about how she takes Toklas for granted. After a decade of being out of print, Waiting for the Moon was finally released on DVD. Add it to your Netflix queue.

Finally, there is Wim Wenders' masterpiece Wings of Desire. This is my favorite film, and like Yes, the dialog is poetry. Wenders was inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's work and poet Peter Handke provides most of the dialog, including the recurring poem "The Song of Childhood":

When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one.

Set in Berlin in the mid-80s when the city was still divided by the wall, the film follows two angels -- Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) -- as they roam the city, unseen by the populace except for children, listening to the thoughts of myriad people. They are unable to interact, to touch or change anything, and Damiel grows increasingly melancholy about this lack of interaction. When he sees Marion (the glorious Solveig Dommartin) performing her trapeze act at a circus, he falls in love with her instantly and begins to follow her across Berlin, listening to her thoughts. Lonely Marion, unlike most mortals, senses that someone is shadowing her and coming into her dreams. Damiel, literally, decides to become a fallen angel so he can be with Marion.

This hymn to the divided city of Berlin remains Wenders' crowning achievement (although Paris, Texas and Until the End of the World are a close second and third). The performances -- especially by the late Dommartin -- are mostly improvised, riffing off Handke's poetry. Dommartin created much of her own dialog, including her closing monologue after she finally meets Damiel face to face. Wandering through the film is Homer (Curt Bois), who like the ancient warrior in The Odyssey, is searching for an "epic peace" as he wanders the bombed out ruins of his old neighborhood, Potsdammer Platz. Peter Falk, as himself, adds some levity to the story as he reveals that he was also an angel who fell to earth.

So, VRZHU readers, what are some of your cinematic inspirations? We'd like to hear from you.   

Armatrading & Bjork - Sisters In Arms

Sisters In Arms by Collin Kelley

Icelandic electronic diva Bjork and English troubadour Joan Armatrading have very little in common musically. However, they are sisters in arms when it comes to independent, creative spirit. While many artists settle into comfortable grooves, releasing pleasant – and mostly uninspired – albums as they mature, Bjork and Armatrading are more vital than ever on their latest releases.

Bjork’s Volta is being hailed as a “return to form” by many critics who missed the driving, dancey beats abandoned on her last two albums, Vespertine and Medulla. While Volta may have more in common with Post or Homogenic, the soundscape Bjork has created is 21st Century tribal. Much has been made of uber-producer Timbaland’s contributions to Volta, but if you’re expecting something as radio-friendly as Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous” or Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback,” keep dreaming. Timbaland may have come up with the big beats, but Bjork has rearranged them to suit her own needs. The stomping first single “Earth Intruders” is not really indicative of the rest of the album, much of which veers from horn-drenched drum ‘n bass (such  as on “Wanderlust”) to torchy, whispered ballads. Did I mention the horns? Bjork has suddenly discovered that a brass section can create a sonic wall of sound that suggests everything from a funeral march to a fog horn. Also present is the pipa, a plucked Chinese instrument that adds an odd, but not unpleasant, Asian flavor to many tracks. What is familiar is the  skittering and complex keyboards and electronic sounds that Bjork, Mark Stent and Nelle Hooper (credited for “paternal musical advice”) create that transcend the cold technology.

Perhaps the greatest moment on this album is Bjork’s duet with Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons on “The Dull Flame of Desire.” The song (a translation of Fyodor Tyutchev’s poem) rides a dirge-like horn arrangement, slowly building with Bjork’s howl and Antony’s world-weary soprano trading lines like, “When my love’s eyes are lowered, when all is fired by passion’s kiss, and through the downcast lashes, I see the dull flame of desire.” It’s one of Bjork’s finest musical moments, and she has clearly found her male counterpart in Antony Hegarty. He returns again on “My Juvenile,” written to Bjork’s now adult son, acting as her “conscience” as she learns to let him go: “I clumsily tried to free you from me, one last embrace to tie a sacred ribbon…” Not everything works on Volta. “Declare Independence” sounds like a rejected PJ Harvey tune, which devolves into heavy drums and Bjork screaming the lyrics until it sounds like her vocal chords are snapping. “Vertebrae by Vertebrae” is so brass- heavy that Bjork’s sensuous lyrics are lost in the drone. US listeners will miss Mark Bell’s sexy trip-hop remix of “I See Who You Are,” which is only available on the UK limited edition CD/DVD combo. It’s worth the extra bucks.

Birmingham, England’s Joan Armatrading continues to astound fans and new generations with her distinctive vocal style and completely under-rated guitar playing, which should be corrected with her 18th album Into the Blues. Since the release of her landmark eponymous album in 1976 (which was actually her third), Armatrading has become a musical (and lesbian) icon. Classic hits like “Love and Affection,” “Rosie,” “Drop the Pilot” have cemented her place in musical history. If you want to reduce any woman to tears (and a few gay men…I’m guilty) just put on her heartbreaking “The Weakness in Me.” On Into the Blues (an album Armatrading said she’d been promising to make for years), her guitar chops give Eric Clapton a run for his money. As a matter of fact, Clapton should take a few notes. While he continues to sink into dullsville, Armatrading’s urgent licks and perfectly arranged piano single-handedly resurrects the blues-rock genre.

This isn’t a collection of covers, but new tunes that should find their way into the cannon of blues songs. “A Woman in Love” is better than anything Bonnie Raitt’s done in a decade, with its precision chords and hooky chorus: “Chained to your heart, I surrender, it’s where I belong.”  On “Play the Blues” (“When I sing the blues, I take off all my clothes for you.” Go on now, sister Joan!), the dramatic percussion adds a sexy sway. “D.N.A” has a surprising electronic element to it, with distorted and amplified guitars and Armatrading stretching her vocals to sound like Tina Turner in the Ike years. You’d think a song called “My Baby’s Gone” would be a down-tempo ballad, but Armatrading turns it into a funky, high-hat anthem complete with chanted “come back, baby, come back” chorus. “There Ain’t A Girl Alive” is Armatrading in nearly full rock mode, belting out lines about a vain woman more interested in her looks and shopping than love. You might want to get the iTunes version of Into the Blues since it contains two bonus tracks, one of which is the anti-war “Can’t Push Me Down,” a song about a coward with a yellow streak down his back, which verges on gleeful bebop.

Chances are Armatrading is never going to be back on mainstream radio again. Leave it to this musical pioneer to make even classic blues and rock to edgy for AOR radio.

Collin Kelley is a poet in Atlanta, Georgia.  He blogs at CollinKelley.blogspot.com

I Love Yoko Ono

Today's post is a guestblog from the amazing Collin Kelley:

Reconsidering Yoko by Collin Kelley

I love Yoko Ono, but that’s not always been the case. For many years I slagged her off the same way stand-up comedian Judy Tenuta (remember her?!) did: “Why don’t you just take a rake across a chalkboard.” It wasn’t until the 90s that I began to reconsider Yoko. I picked up a copy of Season of Glass, her seminal work completed after the death of John Lennon. The cover image of Lennon’s shattered and bloodied glasses sitting on table overlooking Central Park is still a startling statement. The album is a mixture of elegy and confrontation, from the gentle electronica of "Toyboat" to the gunshots that open "No, No, No," it’s haunting, but never weepy. "Walking On Thin Ice" is positively dance-y in the face of tragedy.

Long before Lennon, Ono was an artist in her own right. She was a performance artist, filmmaker, author and early member of Fluxus, the Dada-inspired artists’ movement that started in the 1960s. After she married Lennon in 1969, she became “the woman who broke up The Beatles,” an erroneous tag that continues to dog her. To call some of her music “challenging” is being kind. I still can’t listen to "Why," where she repeats the word over and over for five minutes while a jazz band riffs maniacally behind her. But for every Why, there was something beautiful like "Death of Samantha." She was fearless in experimenting with the limits of sound and electronic music, influencing Laurie Anderson, The B-52s, Elvis Costello, Lene Lovich and countless others.

Twenty-six years on from Season of Glass, Ono’s artistry is no longer in question. She spent much of the 90s collaborating with other artists who inspired her. The Pet Shop Boys turned Walking On Thin Ice into a dance floor stormer, and the Creamer & K Ambient Mix of Will I/Fly is so chilled out that its almost like a mantra. Her reworking of "Everyman, Everywoman" (originally on Double Fantasy) in support of gay marriage was a club hit.

Last month, she released Yes, I'm A Witch, which should put the “Oh No!” jokes permanently to rest. For this project she hand-picked 16 of her favorite artists to rework and re-record some of her most noted songs. Her choices are refreshing: Antony and the Johnsons, Cat Power, techno artist Peaches, The Flaming Lips, Le Tigre and film composer Craig Armstrong to name a few.

Peaches turns "Kiss Kiss Kiss" into a discordant dance song, where Ono’s orgasmic wail is even nastier than before. The Flaming Lips make "Cambridge 1967" a percussive groove, while The Apples turn "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" into a melancholy wall of sound. Craig Armstrong (noted for scoring Baz Lurhman’s films) lends cinematic strings and piano to the Japanese vocal on "Shirankatta" ("I Didn’t Know"), but it’s her collaboration with Antony and the Johnsons on "Toyboat" that make this album worth the price of download. Possibly Ono’s finest vocal moment is here, along with a stirring mixture of ambient electronica, piano and Antony’s ethereal backing vocal that recalls both Cocteau Twins and Bjork.

Perhaps Ono’s greatest musical statement is on the title track. She seems to be fully aware of how others perceive her and she answers back simply, “Yes, I am a witch, I’m a bitch, I don’t care what you say…” Amen, sister. And if you want to hear more of those Yoko dance remixes, coming in April is Open Your Box, featuring the Pet Shop Boys, Felix da Housecat, Danny Tenaglia and an assortment of other progressive DJs who have caught Ono’s groove.

Collin Kelley is a poet in Atlanta, Georgia.  He blogs at CollinKelley.blogspot.com.