VRZHU bullets of pure love

NEW ANTHOLOGY "FULL MOON ON K STREET" POEM ABOUT WASHINGTON DC BY POETS OF WASHINGTON DC

Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC
Kim Roberts, editor

Featuring over one hundred contemporary poems, the book captures DC's unique sense of place, from monuments to parks, from lawyers to bus stations, from go-go music to chili half-smokes.  All poems were written between 1950 and the present, by past and current residents of the city. Edited by Kim Roberts, the publisher of the acclaimed online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly, this anthology captures the city's many moods: celebratory, angry, and fiercely political.

Contributors include: two-time US Poet Laureate Reed Whittemore; DC's first Poet Laureate, Sterling A. Brown; senator and five-time presidential candidate Eugene J. McCarthy; Cervantes prize winner for lifetime achievement in Spanish-language literature, Jose Emilio Pacheco; renowned gay rights activist Essex Hemphill; and President Obama's official inauguration poet,Elizabeth Alexander.

Full Moon on K Street is available at Busboys & Poets, Politics and Prose in Washington DC and elsewhere!

Reviews:

The Washington Post called it "the first anthology of modern poetry to be wholly for, about and by current and former Washington residents—[that] teems with poets who've distilled the region's lifeblood into verse over the past 50 years."

The Current Newspaper's family of neighborhood papers (The Northwest Current, Georgetown Current, and Dupont Current) noted, "If you love D.C., even if you haven't read a poem since high school, you'll find that the book is full of intriguing perspectives on familiar places and events...And for newcomers--or those who want to send the book to folks back home--the introduction to each poem explains the local references."

The Hill Rag acclaimed, "What better place for a poetry journal than the nation's capital?"

Q&A with editor Kim Roberts by Plan B Press publisher stevenallenmay.

Plan B Press: What prompted you to start Beltway Poetry Quarterly online magazine?

Kim Roberts:  It was the idea of my friend Kathy Keler. Kathy is a painter and graphic designer, and she started a website called "washingtonart" to showcase other area visual artists. She thought it would be a great idea to pair this with some poems, and--after convincing me, since I initially took some convincing--Kathy taught me some basics of html, and designed the logo and overall look of the journal. I can't believe that it will be ten years old this coming January! The journal has taught me so much, and introduced me to so many poets.

Plan B Press: The anthology, Full Moon on K Street has evolved from a celebration of Beltway Magazine to a more sweeping look at the city’s poetry over the past 50 years. How did that happen?

Kim Roberts:  The anthology is an overlapping of my several obsessions: poetry, of course, but also literary history, and the built environment. love cities--their architecture, their grid, the way large groups of people use the space--and I love DC especially. I've looked at a lot of other anthologies, and nothing like this exists--a portrait of the city from 1950 to the present, and the places within the city that have meant something special to these authors.

Plan B Press: What types of obstacles have you had to deal with in preparing the anthology? What has been most frustrating and most rewarding in the effort?

Kim Roberts:  Compiling an anthology is much harder than I imagined! There were lots of authors I knew I wanted to include, and I looked back over their work, and was surprised to see that many never wrote poems set in DC. That includes such authors as wide ranging as Larry Neal, Archibald MacLeish, Owen Dodson, and Anthony Hecht. There were other authors, such as Dierdra Baldwin, Gloria Oden, and Haki Madhubuti who did not respond to my request for poems. It would have been lovely to have included all of them. But there were lots of wonderful coups as well. I spoke to the next-of-kin of many authors who have passed away who were enthusiastic about the project. Some, like Ed Cox's family, were thrilled to be reminded that their loved ones are still read and loved by the larger literary community. I am so grateful to them (as well as the families of Hilary Tham, Ann Darr, Betty Parry, and others) for the warm responses they gave. I was also gratified by the poets who--like Myra Sklarew--decided to write poems specifically for this anthology. And I was pleased to be able to track down so many authors who once lived in DC and have since moved away, such as Michael Lally, Gray Jacobik, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Sharan Strange. There are also poets included who I think should be better known to readers. I was able to get permission to reprint a poem by Essex Hemphill, the pioneering African-American gay rights activist whose poetry is a revelation, but whose work was long kept out of circulation by family members wanting to preserve their privacy. There are poems by Percy Johnston, a leader of the Howard Poets of the 1970s, and Eugene McCarthy, best remembered as a Senator and five-time Presidential candidate. Their poems, different as they are, show great humor and an deep engagement with the world around them. Jose Emilio Pacheco, little known here, is widely considered Mexico's greatest living poet. He taught at the University of Maryland for one semester a year for many years, and his poem about Sligo Creek is a terrific addition to the book. And Gaston Neal, who published so little during his lifetime but was a mentor to so many, is included with a tribute poem to Sterling Brown.

 

 

 

You can catch readings from Full Moon on K Street by poets who appear in this wonderful anthology here:

March 22
Poet's Corner radio show, featuring a reading from the anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC with editor Kim Roberts and contributors Teri Ellen Cross, Hayes Davis, David Moore. Interviewed by Abdul Ali.
Monday, 7:00 pm
WPFW 89.3 FM

March 23
Poetry at Noon: Reading from the anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC with editor Kim Roberts and contributors Jonetta Rose Barras, Merrill Leffler, Ramola D, and Venus Thrash.
Tuesday, 12:00 pm
Free. Library of Congress, Jefferson Building, Whittall Pavilion, First St. SE, DC. (202) 707-5394.

A NEW BEGINNING.....

COMING SOON......

 

Tuesday Vrzhu - The Deep, The Shallow, and The Alternate Universe of Some Critics

Question of the day: Poetry: Deep or shallow?

Clarification: no denigration implied by the word “shallow.”  On the contrary. By shallow, I mean that the poem’s surface, its’ words, are what they are. The motto for this position might be “A poem means just what it says.”  The initial impetus for this might be a paraphrase of Nietzsche: “Poems are considered deep - why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Poems are not even shallow.” Truth is surface. Your face is who you are, not the skull. All skull look about the same, compared to faces.

Clarification 2: Nor should it be assumed that poetry as deep is superior to poetry as surface.  When the Russian symbolist movement tired itself out, every image stood in for some abstract concept.  The Acmeists rightly rebelled against this, the Symbolist “mysticism” where the obscure becomes the vague, which becomes the bland. The Acmeists sought to “re-surface” poetry, recover precision, clarity. “The rose has once more become beautiful in and of itself.” “No ideas but in things.” “To the things themselves.”

“Shallow” and “deep” are here used as descriptors, not of aesthetic quality (we’re not there yet(and whatever that is)), but as parts of definitions, locations of where poetry dwells.  It may turn out that neither depth, nor surface is where poetry essentially is. In which case we will have learned that poetry is something that can be found in either place.

The argument for depth would be something like what—I think—Mary Ruefle said: A poem is always about something else. 

Surface: Flarf 

Depth: Conceptual

Or is this all nonsense? And it's just a matter of whether--*sigh*--you are in or out.  WHATEVER *THAT* MEANS.

***

Question of the day # 2:

If  you were in attendance at the inauguration or watched via cathode tube, please respond to the following statements:

The feeling of the inauguration could be described as imperial.

__Strongly agree
__Agree somewhat
__Disagree somewhat
__Strongly disagree
__Don’t know

The inauguration was full of the praetorian pomp

__Strongly agree
__Agree somewhat
__Disagree somewhat
__Strongly disagree
__Don’t know

The inauguration seemed more redolent of Caesar than George Washington.

__Strongly agree
__Agree somewhat
__Disagree somewhat
__Strongly disagree
__Don’t know

Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem, "Praise Song for the Day," failed to live up to the standard of public, official verse.

__Strongly agree
__Agree somewhat
__Disagree somewhat
__Strongly disagree
__Don’t know

Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem was a perfect specimen of bureaucratic verse.

__Strongly agree
__Agree somewhat
__Disagree somewhat
__Strongly disagree
__Don’t know

The argument of Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem was as hard to remember as its language; it dissolved at once into the circumambient solemnity.

__Strongly agree
__Agree somewhat
__Disagree somewhat
__Strongly disagree
__Don’t know

Results will be tabulated and used as part of an upcoming study...

***
John Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009)

Call me naive (because I am), but I have always derived an almost physical pleasure from reading Updike's sentences, even when the book as a whole disappointed.  They proved that prose could be at least as well written as poetry.

There’s one Updike poem I’ve been trying to track down for years.  It’s a sonnet, and starts with two or three lines, and the rest of the poem is something like this:

"c
d
c
d

e
f
e
f

g
g"

That’s not the rhyme scheme, that’s the poem itself.  Ha!

Click on the title to read the down low on:

Ex-Basketball Player
by John Updike

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all—more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In ’46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.

(courtesy of the Poetry Foundation online Poetry Archive. I hope they don't mind.)

Man, has it been a harsh winter, or what?

***

Do I love *everything* Mary Ruefle writes?

Yes. Yes, I do.

'Of her poem “Glory,” Ruefle writes: “I don’t know what inspires a poem, but ‘Glory’ was informed by a general self-loathing (and its opposite), a gorgeous autumn, and the bit about the psychic is true. I met a wonderful woman living in one of those awful surfing towns on the Australian coast. She was a psychic and wanted to serve me a kind of candy called Violet Crumble, which I was anxious to try because I believed it was made from real violets. But she couldn’t remember where she had hidden it, though she spoke of the events of the next millennium with ease. Later, I found the Violet Crumbles in a drugstore. They were not made out of violets and were regrettable, but that whole glorious afternoon came back to me while I was writing the poem, though not before—I never know what I am going to write about until I write it. I think there’s a certain amount of poetic denial in all my work, in so far as writing poems sometimes appears to be in direct opposition to living, though in fairness I must admit there are times writing poems appears to be intense living indeed. The tension between the two keeps me working hard at both, complicated by a natural laziness.”'

Addendum - The Inaugural Poem

Not sure about the lineation (in some cases, lack of) here--since it's partially dependent on my memory, but here's a transcript from the New York Times of Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem.  Comments below.

Praise Song For The Day
Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise.
All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din,
each one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky;
A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe;
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce,
built brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign;
The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love,
love beyond marital, filial, national.
Love that casts a widening pool of light.
Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp –
praise song for walking forward in that light.
***

Being able to read it, I have to revise my opinion of this poem upwards. It's tighter than I thought, with lots of interlacing.  Again, I like the moves towards words as human phenonmena. "We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider." "What if the mightiest word is love..."  "...anything can be made, any sentence begun." Reminds a little of Auden's "...it survives/In the valley of its making… it survives,/A way of happening, a mouth."

I apologize for getting the last line wrong as I was liveblogging: "praise song for walking to that light" rather than, as the transcript shows, "praise song for walking forward in that light."

This might be the best inaugural poem yet.  Props out to Elizabeth Alexander!

Liveblogging the Inaugural Poem (I.P.), part 8

12:27 PM Here it comes:  Elizabeth Alexander:

 Praise Song for the Day

First Line:  Each day we go about our business

Each one of our ancestors on our tongue..

Making music, waiting for a bus, farmer, teacher to students

Words....

We walk into that which we cannot yet see

Many have died for this day

(a montage of activities so far)

A segment of the classic "Praise.."

What if the mightiest word is love--back to word reference above

Today's sharp sparkle--Whitman reference?

"Praise song for walking forward to that light" is, I think the last line.

Certainly avoids bombast. I like the brief emphasis on words. Alexander has said that her poems start in language, which is a good statement of how lots of true poetry starts. "Poems are made of words."

Using the Praise song format was a smart move. It has deep ties to African American poems, and particularly women African American poems poets.  It's also a fairly safe wrong approach, and provides a format that is not going to get you into trouble.  I'm not going to criticize Alexander for this, though. It's most probably not an occasion when big risks are likely to be rewarded. A nice double meaning in the last line.  Is "praise" an adjective or a verb?  Both!!

Interlude: Nice phrase in the blessing: tanks will be beaten into tractors. The rev. Joseph Lowery.  Then a surprising spurt of rhymes at end: Brown will stick around, yellow will be mellow. I salute you, Rev. Lowery! Best moment yet.

Back to the I.P. - Can't help but wish Alexander had been seized by the Muse more, and pulled it off.  Not that I would have done anything differently, and would have played it safe myself.

Well, that's it for me, folks, thanks for stopping by and see you soon, here at the Vrzhu Bullets of Love Blog - your blog for live blogging of all inaugural poems since 1998....

Blogging(live) the Inaugural Poem, Part 7

12:14 PM: Inaugural Speech continued.  Good stuff, but after the opening imagery, straightforward, except for the "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and ....begin again." Misquoting the song lyric.

Mentions non-believers (probably first time ever in an Inaug. Address).

"We will extend a hand, if you are willing to unclench you fist..." Nice constructed metaphor.

Interlude: Just got an automated marketing call about our car's warranty. When will this madness end?

..and I just broke a tooth.  I'm not kidding. Distractions, distractions.

Inaugural Speech ends. 12:26 PM

Blogging the Inaugural (Poem), Part 6

12:05 PM - The Oath is taken. Lots of cheers. Wait, are those cannons firing into the crowd?  Sorry, kidding. :)

Here comes the Inaugural Speech...

12:07

Lots of weather imagery at the start:  rising tides of prosperity, gathering clouds...

 

Liveblogging the Inaug. Part Five

11:57:  Oath of Office ceremony starting up.  Everybody stands up.  Lots of emotion, tears.

Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma featured in an arrangement of the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." Nice.

Live Blogging - Live from the Inaugural, Part 4 Live

11:45 - No poetry in sight yet. 

Diane Feinstein uses a metaphor: We etch another line in history...

Yvor Winters famously disliked the use of the word etch in poetry....

Another: the ballot over the bullet

Coming up...Dr. Rick Warren....

11:48 AM

'"a hinge point of history." Warren metaphors up.

" a great cloud of witnesses." reference to the Bible, or Dorothy Sayers?

Contrast and compare:
Here's the opening prayer from yesterday by Rev. Eugene Robinson (unreported or covered by most news orgs):

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Delivered by the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson:

"Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN."

Live Blogging the Inaugural, Part Trois

11:38 - Ceremony's a-starting up. Cheers.

TV guide for today:

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM: The historical inauguration of the first African-American President of the United States of America.

8:00 PM: American Idol

9:00 PM: America's BIggest Loser (cont'd)

10:00 PM: Street Patrol