Preparing for the Fall

My note taking and letter writing desk. My Walt Whitman Box seems to be right at home.

For the last week or so I've been taking a lot of notes in preparation for teaching the course in Modern Poetry in the Fall. It's a 300-level course, so class periods are going to have to be devoted to considerably more than asking the students, "What do you think this means?" Truthfully, I can't think of an artistic movement more complex or confusing than Modernism, and the last thing I want is for the students to throw their hands up in despair.

Last night I worked on Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens. I still have a lot to sort through regarding Stevens, but I wanted to tackle Ezra Pound this evening. This is the desk where I do my note taking and prepare my lesson plans. I write letters at this desk, as well. Occasionally I grade papers here, too, although in winter I most often do that in a cozy chair beside the wood stove.

"Trash"

I don't usually like to announce these things too far ahead, for fear of jinxing them, but I just approved the galleys of my new story "Trash" and have been told it will appear in the Sun in September.

This is a story I've been working on for about three years. I'm glad it has found a home.

This is description of the Sun from the magazine's website:

The Sun isn't "literary" or "political" or "spiritual" in the usual sense. It begins where those labels end, which is where life gets interesting. Each month, in essays, stories, interviews, and poetry, people write in The Sun of their struggle to understand their lives, often baring themselves with surprising intimacy. Our writers aren't afraid to take risks, to look at something ugly -- or beautiful -- and describe it honestly.

The Sun stands for everything I've come to understand about what writing needs to be for me.

Until there be no Guernicas left

I'd like to thank the commenter, Monica, for pointing the way to this poem after reading my post about Guernica, art, and suffering:

COVER-UPSSlaughter of Innocents

Pablo Picasso has words for Colin Powell from the other side of death
Ariel Dorfman
Sunday, March 9, 2003

Yes, even here, here more than anywhere else,
we know and watch what is going on
what you are doing with the world
we left behind
What else can we do with our time?
Yes, there you were, Mr. Secretary,
I think that is how they call you
there you were
standing in front of my Guernica
a replica it is true
but still my vision of what was done
that day to the men to the women
and to the children to that one child
in Guernica that day in 1937
from the sky
Not really standing in front of it.
It had been covered, our Guernica,
covered so you could speak.
There in the United Nations building.
So you could speak about Iraq.
Undisturbed by Guernica.
Why should it disturb perturb you?
Why did you not ask that the cover
be removed
the picture
be revealed?
Why did you not point to the shrieking
the horse dying over and over again
the woman with the child forever dead
the child that I nurse here in this darkness
the child who watches with me
as you speak
and you speak.
Why did you not say
This is why we must be rid of the dictator.
Why did you not say
This is what Iraq has already done and undone.
Why did you not say
This is what we are trying to save the world from.
Why did you not use
Guernica to make your case?
Were you afraid that the mother
would leap from her image and say
no he is the one
they are the ones who will bomb
from afar
they are the ones who will kill
the child
no no no
he is the one they them
from the distance the bombs
keeping us always out of sight
inside death and out of sight
Were you afraid that the horse
would show the world the near future
three thousand cruise missiles in the first hour
spinning into Baghdad
ten thousand Guernicas
spinning into Baghdad
from the sky
Were you afraid of my art
what I am still saying
more than sixty five years later
the story still being told
the vision still dangerous
the light bulb still hanging
like an eye from the dead
my eye that looks at you from the dead
beware
beware the eye of the child
in the dark
you will join us
the child and I
the horse and the mother
here on the other side
you will join us soon
you will journey here
as we all do
is that why you were
so afraid of me?
join us
and spend the rest of eternity
watching
watching
watching
next to us
next to the remote dead
not only of Iraq
not only of
is that why you were
so afraid of that eye?
watching
your own eyes sewn open wide looking
at the world you left behind
there is nothing else to do
with our time
sentenced to watch
and watch
by our side
until there will be no Guernicas left
until the living understand
and then, Mr. Secretary,
and then
a world with no Guernicas
and then
yes then
you and I
yes then
we can rest
you and I and the covered child

Ariel Dorfman's latest books are "Exorcising Terrror: The Incredible Ongoing Trial of General Augusto Pinochet" and the poems, "In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land (Duke University Press)." He has just completed a play about Picasso during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/09/IN201026.DTL

After reading Cynthia's 47th Birthday entry, "Baring It All" I had a dream about Dr. Seuss.

After reading Cynthia's 47th Birthday entry, "Baring It All" I had a dream about Dr. Seuss. Cynthia's blog entry is such a powerful affirmation of selfhood and optimism, and I guess her words must have embedded themselves in my unconscious. Cynthia spoke of reading one of her favorite books, Oh the Places You'll Go by Seuss. After reading her entry, I looked at that Seuss book again and enjoyed it immensely.

In the dream, Allen and I were in our 30's: you know, that time in life when the kids are little and you have dreams for them, and you've got dreams for yourself, and you're working and working and working and wondering if you're really building a career or staying in one place.

The hallmark of the dream is that Allen bought a used car which he called a "Dr. Seuss car." It was enormous enough that it had a bookshelf (here I must smile, since my life is books) in the back seat. The car looked like a big, traveling cake, all festooned with icing and lace (and exactly like an illustration in a Seuss book), but the motor was bad and sometimes wouldn't start.

The car, it seems to me, is a visual manifestation of the abstract idea of "going somewhere" and yet, because the car has a "bad motor," having a hard time "getting anywhere."

In the dream I was thinking a lot about where I wanted to "go" with my writing, so I was thinking about MFA programs I wanted to be a part of. This is obviously where I am right now--not thinking about MFA programs, obviously (except that I did recently e-mail Cynthia about MFA programs), but thinking about where I'm "going" as a writer.

I've been feeling lately like I have such a long way to go in order to be the writer I want to be.

Alison Luterman, the poet I roomed with when I taught workshops at Esalen, recently sent out an e-mail about a book she wants to do on midlife dreams. I think Alison's book idea inspired my dream also.

I just love my dream life. I've been thinking about that dream all day.

My Walt Whitman Box

My Walt Whitman Box (top view)

My Walt Whitman Box (front view). On the other side of the photograph is a mirror, and this photo/mirror part of the box rotates.

My Walt Whitman Box (Back View). The mirror part of the box can be turned around and the other photo will be showing (upside down).

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As soon as I saw the box ($1) at Goodwill, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it: it would become my Walt Whitman box. I'd just been reading Whitman, and I felt close to his ideas. When Whitman says, "I celebrate myself," he is also saying that he celebrates me (actually all, everything, the cosmos). I love that I have a mirror on one side and Whitman's "Christ" photo on the other. I can rotate that piece of the box and see my face, Whitman's face, my face, and the boundaries of time and distance fade away. I can also allow the master poet to show me the importance of writing. The going gets hard sometimes: it's nice to have Walt sitting beside me. (The box sits on a desk that I hand-painted a few years ago that also came from Goodwill).