This is not a Confession: Poetry and Autism

A while back I made the announcement to some of you by way of this blog that I was recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.  Well the DSM-5 has reclassified the definitions of how to label autism, and as such, I am at Level 1, which means highly functioning.  Not that has anything to do with what I am talking about other than to give you a little background and insight.  What I am really talking about today is how I interpret the poetry world.  The confession, you ask?  I will get to that pretty quick, but first and foremost I think it's a catchy title.  It's one of the things I focus on and have long fixated upon during my 25+ years of writing poems---both horrid and somewhat acceptable.  Besides, I said this was not a confession, so you will just have to keep reading if you want to see if I was lying.

A few days ago I found out I was not going to be receiving a fellowship from the Nevada Arts Council for poetry in the upcoming FY2015.  I received an honorable mention back in 2008, which was pretty awesome, and I recently received a Jackpot Grant for assistance in publishing my third full length collection through BlazeVOX, Sailing This Nameless Ship.  As the story often goes, I felt a little bit of a sting seeing other people's names listed as the upcoming Arts Fellows for Nevada.  I think I am a pretty decent poet, and I have a considerable amount of pride knowing I send in poetry written for the most part within the year leading up to my submission.  We can submit work up to four years old if we like in Nevada, but I try to keep my work as current as possible as I think it keeps me honest.  I take some comfort in my wife telling me I just don't write what's in fashion, but the truth is my work just isn't good enough.  I personally believe it's a combination.  My work isn't good enough, but I also do not write what is fashionable.

As someone with Asperger's Syndrome (AS), I fixate on my subject matter.  I'm not as bad as William Heyen, but I tend to write about very specific things and once I have a book project I cannot deviate from that topic.  Yeah, so what's different, Justin?  This is what's different:  I cannot write anything new or feel good about myself as a writer until I have closure with my current project and there is no way for me to know what will bring me that closure because it has been something entirely different for every manuscript I have ever written.  More?  I lose interest in every project when I am 90% finished.  So, for any project I create, I become obsessed with it until I am 90% finished, but I cannot move on until I finish it.  For anyone familiar with AS or Autism in general, you know that with the AS individual it's hot or cold.  There is no warm.  It's almost manic.  What is good is really good, and what sucks really sucks.  I am reminded of being on Amitriptyline when I was being initially treated for my headaches which is a part of my Desert Storm Syndrome.  It is a mood altering medication, and I was a real SOB.  In hindsight I now know that drug did a number on my AS and alienated almost everyone in my life.  So what happens?  I get stuck in some kind of limbo, unable to abandon a project, and almost unwilling to complete it.

Add to that, the following I mentioned in the post where I announced my diagnosis:

One of the things I thought was wrong with me and my poetry was not being able to write with what I perceived to be the 'linguistic depth' as other poets.  Now, I realize that one of the common disorders which accompanies Asperger's is something called Alexithymia.  It's the sub-clinical inability to 'identify and describe emotions in the self,' or, at least that's what Wikipedia tells me.  Well, I have it in spades.  When I took the profile questionnaire my numbers weren't off the chart, but they were quite high.  Imagine my astonishment that one of the special interests I had developed (poetry) as people with AS are prone to do, is hampered by an inability to do what said special interests requires.  Simply put, I am a poet who cannot identify or describe his emotions.

The result is I have a difficult time writing poems people like more than one or two at a time.  I will (actually I have written) write an entire manuscript of ars poetica poems and I have a great deal of success playing the individual poems, but taken all together, it was a very hard sell.  Now imagine what happened when I became fixated on 19th Century Agrarian Mormon History as what I wanted to write about?  The poems I wrote for Sailing This Nameless Ship were written in a three month period.  I had a great deal of success getting about 40% of the poems accepted for publication.  Then . . . nothing.  I mean nothing.  Everything stopped. I couldn't have had anyone take another poem from that collection of poems if I promised to pay for their kid's college tuition.  

And that's what the last two years have been like.  I have written poems and I have submitted, but I have not had a single taker.  Not a single "close, but maybe some other time." I received one "we respect you" rejection which was nice, but really it was the same thing I have experienced over and over again.  People just don't like what I am writing right now, and my ability to write the poems the way they deserve to be written is possibly at fault, too.  So when I made the decision to stop submitting my poems it really was based in my acknowledgement of not doing what a poet should be doing---making my thoughts and feelings accessible to the reading audience.  I received one message from someone who told me it was/is sour grapes.  I will admit I have sour grapes, but not over being rejected.  I know and accept if my poems aren't good enough, that's how it goes.

No.  My sour grapes is a result of my AS.  Part of my brain is convinced all of you are part of some cabal of poets of which I can never be a part of because I have never received an MFA or PhD, and I do not teach college writing like so many of you do.  I look at all of you and I see you talking to each other in some strange dialect and giving each other secret handshakes.  I have a similar perception of home-ownership, so I know how irrational my feelings are.  I have published more than a hundred poems in dozens of journals; I have had four chapbooks published; three full length collections published; I have blurbed books and have been trusted by quite a few of you to read your manuscripts and offer my thoughts.  Yet I still feel like I am not one of you.  I feel like the slow kid because I do not have the depth of language you do, and I do not have the credentials most of you have.  I got tired of faking it until I make it because it just never seemed to gel for me.  But now I know part of the reason why.  My AS tells me you all know something I don't, but that's not really true.  It's why I am such a pain in the ass so much of the time, and it's why I can go on at length about things long after you have stopped caring.  

So here's this: A Confession.

I am never going to be able to fully accept my role, value, or authenticity as a poet.  I am not okay with that all of the time, and it may come out in strange ways---sometimes frustration, and sometimes by way of jealousy.  Please bear with me.

Why I've decided to suspend the poet behavior of submitting my poems

Yes, the title to this post is entirely accurate.  I have decided to forego the process of submitting my poems for the time being.  Not that a lot of you will care why I am doing this, but I want to spell it out as much for myself as for anyone else who might have the urge to ask why they don't see any writer news from me in this department.


1.  It has been more than two years since I have had anything accepted for publication.

Basically I have been either writing the wrong stuff or I have been writing the right stuff nobody is interested in reading.  I would like to think I am writing the right stuff but editors have been of the mind their readers do not want to read what I am writing.  I am sure it's a little bit of both.  I am certain some of my poems were not ready for publication and some were just not to the liking of the editors who have seen my work in the past two (plus) years.  I'm okay with any eventuality in this category.  I am still writing and I am still editing my poems, and lest there be any confusion, I have never had any belief the submitting process is connected to the writing process, except to say if you aren't writing, you probably don't have much to submit.


2.  I am not liking a lot of the poetry I am reading in journals lately.

While I am tempted to say this is an explanation as to why my work is not being accepted, I am going to avoid that pitfall.  Instead I am going to acknowledge a splitting of aesthetics---those of myself and those of everybody else.  If I am not enjoying the poetry I m reading in a lot of the venues I peruse in my wanderings over he internet and a few of the printed journals to which I subscribe, then I have no business wasting the time of those who edit said journals and enjoy reading them.  It would be disingenuous of me to say to any of these publications, I am right and you are wrong, and further, this is how it is supposed to be done by submitting my own poems for consideration.


3.  I do not want to write in the hopes of impressing the wrong people.

While every writer has an immutable list of people he/she wants to impress and would do almost anything to hear a snippet of praise from, very few of those people are poetry editors I know.  Oh, I would love to  be accepted to some poetry journals, but I do not write for any of the editors of those journals and I do not want my writing to start don that path.  By stopping the submission process, I am trying to, in my own way, ensure I will not be changing what little of my poetry is authentically mine for something which might garner favor from these editors---especially the ones I admire.  Precious little of anything I have to say is original, and I want to keep it that way.


* * *

Later, in the Fall, I will have five or so poems coming out in weber---The Contemporary West, and those poems were accepted back in early 2012.  Those poems were from my book, Hobble Creek Almanac, which came out in 2013.   They are the last poems of mine which will be out for a considerable amount of time.  I am also working on a manuscript of landscape meditations, which may or may not ever get published.  The poems I m writing now are short, weird, and terse.  I have no explanation for why they are such, but that's what they are.  I have taken to reading a lot of well established poets I admire and a few new books, but I have restricted my purchases, and will be buying fewer books than I normally would for quite a while.

Book Review: Julie Brooks Barbour's Small Chimes

Small Chimes
Julie Brooks Barbour
80 pp., Aldrich Press
ISBN: 13-978-0615993508
$14


Small Chimes, Julie Brooks Barbour's first full length book, is exactly the book which fans of Barbour's poetry want and deserve.  Brooks' ability to communicate the pastoral by way of geography and narrative is exact and delightful.  Barbour's biographical sketches are layered and intrinsically tied to the natural world, which is the perfect platform to discuss the natural progression of a quiet, domestic life.  Much like when an artist creates a portrait by using thousands of different photographs, Barbour's poems stitch together a portrait of her life which reveals itself to be multifaceted and complex.  Barbour is both narrator and subject in the landscape which she composes for the reader.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book for me is how Barbour never allows herself to stray from the natural world.  There is always something elemental at play in her poems.  It is clear the domestic life she has chosen for herself is rooted in her relationships to the natural world.  Whether she is rooting her feet into the earth to hold steady, speaking of past generations, or likening the taste of breast milk to that of honeysuckle, Barbour's narrator never lets the reader forget we are always tethered to the natural world in one way or another. 

Another triumph in Small Chimes is Barbour's refusal to allow the narrator's domesticity become an enclosed apparatus.  It's refreshing because Barbour doesn't defend or celebrate this aspect of her life; she demonstrates how it is the air she breathes.  These poems are not a put-on or manufactured for the reader's benefit; they are the natural conveyance of the world Barbour knows and lives.  Take for example these closing lines from "Because the days are not always filled with light":


because there is honesty and redemption beyond office towers,
because a child welcomes me back home;

remind me of duty, remind me who it is I love




Small Chimes is evidence of the examined life.   And even though she refuses her world to be defined by her gender, Barbour as wife and mother understands the air which she breaths, comprehends her place is as precarious as any other woman's.  Devoting an entire section of the book to the birth and early years of her daughter does not sum up this reality, either. Each moment in this book takes the reader closer to this realization.  Even in the inability to assess herself in "A Thousand Alarms" (the poem from which the books title is taken) Barbour reveals she is ever present in her vigilance.  The first three stanzas read:

A Thousand Bells
clang,
a thousand alarms.
I don't hear


the small chimes
or the whisperings
of breath
from my nose.

Tight
from neck
to ankles,
I wait for disaster:


The end result of Small Chimes is a declaration made by the poet: There is a life we are given, and there is a life we choose four ourselves, and each one of us gets to tell the world how we perceive it.  Each poem filled with geography, topography, and biography points the reader to something specific and unique.  We learn from these stories and we learn how to reject the tiny boxes the world at large would like us to make allowances for. Julie Brooks Barbour accepted the life she was given and through her poems shows us the world she made for herself--- the one she wanted, and it is not a world familiar with the concept of acquiescence.  Opening this book of poems will bring you an opportunity to learn how to do the same with your life.

The Trouble with Poetry

Now that NaPoWriMo is done (and I wrote no more poems than I might have during any given month) I want to say a few things regarding problems with poetry in the contemporary world.  Or, rather, problems I see with the contemporary state of poetry.  You will of course indulge me because this is my blog---in itself a dying medium of which there is less and less relevance every day.  However, it is still a medium for such expressions of ideas, and I, sir and or madam, will ride this pony long after it is dead.



1.  The Trouble with Poetry is the reader.  Yes, I said it.  The trouble is those people who read poetry and do not take it seriously think that poetry just happens like spontaneous combustion.  They do not acknowledge the work which goes into a poem.  I am not talking about the spark of imagination, nor am I talking about the wonderfully marvelous line or phrase which appears in the poet's head, forcing a cessation of all other activities in order to feverishly write it down before it is lost.  I am talking about the real work of a poet---the one which begins after the drafting has been completed.  You know, revision and crafting.

Never once have I thought a professional athlete was not worth his or her salary.  I am okay wherever  negotiations end up.  I know a few Latin phrases, and I am well versed in the principles of The Constitution, and I have argued the virtues of the various rights contained within The Bill of Rights, but that doesn't make me a lawyer.  But far too often I am denied the opportunity to feel good about writing poetry because too many (non-writer) readers make it clear every chance they get, to tell me my efforts and devotion to the writing of poetry isn't something to respect.  All this while not understanding the writing process themselves.  Now, I know enough about football and baseball so I don't look like an idiot when I am forced to watch a game, but the last thing I do is try to tell anyone who is devoted to the game, whether they be player or fan, their passion is a waste of time or that there is nothing to it.  So why then is poetry such an easy target for dismissal?

And to be clear, it's poetry.  You never see a reader deride Steven King or Stephanie Meyers on the act of writing.  Quality? Maybe.  Preference? Most certainly.  But you will never hear a writer say novelists are wasting their time writing.  Is it the money?  I guess there is a great deal of money to be made as novelists, but the ratio of successful (popular) novelist to those who are not successful (make enough money to write exclusively) is not particularly encouraging.  So, money is a factor, but it can't be the only thing.

This leads me to number two on my list.

2.  The Trouble with Poetry is the teacher.  Teachers are responsible for the negative perceptions many people have regarding poetry.  No doubt about it.  Teachers teach poetry wrong, and they have been teaching it wrong since at least the mid to late 1960's.  how do I know?  Because many of my teachers did a poor job of teaching poetry and I was in school from the mid-1970's through the mid 1980's (I graduated high school in 1987) and they had to have been taught wrong if they turned around and taught it wrong themselves.  And now you are thinking, 'They must have done something right, Justin, if you are a poet.  What about that?'  Well, I won't deny I had teachers who taught me how to read, and read well.  I have always been able to comprehend and infer very well.  However, when it came to poetry, it was avoided like the plague except in honors or advanced placement classes.  It was made very clear to me and my classmates poetry was probably beyond our abilities and that was that.  I can't stand that.  I am a populist (some might say socialist) and I think poetry is for everyone in that there is a poet and poetry for everyone.

Where my teachers failed me, and where I see teachers failing students still, is presenting poetry as something which falls into one of two unfortunate stereotypes:  Gimmicks like acrostics or haiku (I am not saying these are gimmicks in themselves, but that they are presented as gimmicks by teachers) written according to by some per-determined set of arbitrary rules; or, that of being immensely difficult and inscrutable.  As such, poetry is in the minds of far too many readers to either be wholly simplistic or obscure for obscurity's sake.  No wonder too many people have no respect for poetry and those who write it.  Most people generally assume poetry is akin to a set of directions assisting in the assembly of Ikea furniture.  Quite simply, poetry is not to be trusted.  Either the poem is entirely rote, or it is the product of a poet bent on confusing the reader.  

In part, Teachers fail because they never think to tell their students poets rarely, if ever, have the intent of confusing the reader when writing the poem.  In fact, I don't even think you could have that intent on any poet---not even the Moderns.  Teachers fail to teach their students about how poetry, in the act of creation, is not a gimmick.  Teachers fail to teach their students that the best poets are rarely concerned about whether the poem becomes popular.  The teacher fails to teach that poetry for the most part is matter of taste and not something which is really meant to be graded or evaluated.  These are sins of omission, and because teachers allow students to have this view of poetry, the reader does not feel as if poetry or the poet can be trusted.   

Do I know how poetry should be taught to high school students?  Not entirely.  What I do know is how it should not be taught.  Poetry should not be presented as something to be decoded because the process of decoding implies poetry is something foreign or separate. I know poetry should not be evaluated beyond the poems ability to make a connection with the reader.  I know popularity in poetry is not the same as enduring and none of that matters when considering whether or not a poem has communicated something essential.  I know for every poem by a poet in an anthology which a teacher directs students to 'evaluate,' there are probably dozens (if not hundreds) of so-called 'failed poems' that same poet would claim to be just as beautiful.

3. The Trouble with Poetry is the poet.    Oh, don't act surprised.  You knew this was coming.  The trouble with poetry is the poet but it's complicated.  Simply put, there isn't enough space in the entirety of blogdom to properly discuss why poets are what's wrong with poetry, but I will do a little summing up here of those particular segments of the issue which peeve me most.

a.  Poets are too competitive.  Oh, most poets talk a good game, but few poets are genuinely happy for another poet's success.  Quite a few poets  feel threatened by other poets' success.  After all, the resources our culture allocates for poetry are extremely limited.  This attitude probably comes from young poets and takes a while to fade from the mind.  Here I am mostly speaking of younger poets (not by age but by how long a person has been putting serious effort into writing poetry) who have not yet discovered the truth about poetry---that poetry is not analogous to other endeavors.  Poetry is in some ways quite binary.  There is being a poet and not being a poet.  There is writing a poem or not writing a poem.  The end result of writing a poem brings joy or it does not bring joy.  Unfortunately, from the outside looking in, many young poets think there is some sort of ranking system similar to quarterly earnings on a spreadsheet.  That is not the case.

b.  Poets don't play well with others.  In fact, most writers don't, but we are talking about poets. I think by our very nature, poets are reluctant to share our process.  I mean, it takes probably ten years to approach competence, and that is a difficult decade.  It probably takes those ten years to even begin to understand how it is we do what we do, and it feels pretty awkward trying to explain it at sometimes.  Hence, what seems to be mysterious to non poets remains mysterious because poets on some level don't want to over-think their art by exploiting it for what they assume will be to no profitable end.  Even today, when I teach creative writing, I run back to Richard Hugo, who saved my teaching life by saying that he could only speak to what works for him.

c.  Poets argue about poetry too much.  One of the reasons teachers do not teach poetry well is because they get the impression poets argue about poetry way too much and there is no sense in teaching something which causes so much debate.  and it does, too.  Unfortunately teachers don't feel comfortable with not having a definitive answer about meaning or underlying tone, or other stupid things like that.  No, meaning and tone are not stupid.  Of course I am exaggerating.  I say those things are stupid because one does not need to have an answer to those questions in order to have a conversation.  It's stupid to think someone has to have an answer to those things going into a conversation.  So, how is this about poets and not teachers?  Because poets are the ones who give the impression to other people answers are essential to having these conversations.  Of course meaning is important, and of course there are correct and incorrect answers when discussing meaning.  You are not allowed to say a poem can mean anything you want because there is no 'right or wrong' answer to what a poem means.  Nor can you ask, 'How do you know?  You weren't there!' and really be taken seriously.  That is, however, the plague of any field of study and not limited to poetry.  Some things are simply more apparent than others. Poets miss their mark when they do not let people know it's okay to begin a conversation about poetry and/or specific poems with no answer in mind.   More importantly it's okay to get to the end of that conversation and still not have any answers.  Ironically, poets need to let people know it's okay to not take poetry so seriously.  Poets need to demand that they as poets be taken seriously, but the poetry itself needs no such designation of being right or wrong, good or bad, or, god forbid . . . important.

Bully Pulpit: Buy some damned books, already!

This is re-hash of my last "buy books" rant along with some added thoughts.  If you think I am being rude or you just don't want to hear it again, then go away.



I know I begin to sound like a broken record when it comes to this, but I really am getting tired of people who don't buy books and then complain that nobody buys books any more.  Since I buy books, I get to talk about this and if you don't like it, that's too bad.  Her are a few rules to consider.


1.  If you know a poet, you need to buy poetry books in some of these ways.  If you are a poet, you should be willing to buy poetry books in all these ways:

Buy books your friends write.

Buy books from the presses who publish you and your friends.

Buy the books you read about on Facebook.

Buy Books from Amazon's Hot 100 List. (Yes, they are evil, so look up the books on Amazon and then buy the book directly from the press.)

Find small presses and buy year long subscriptions for all of their chapbooks.

Gift books you don't like to other poets.

Buy Books for all of your gifts.  Your nieces and nephews don't like poetry?  To hell with them.  Buy them more poetry.

Buy books and sneak them into Doctors' offices.

Spend your damned money!



2.  If you don't follow rule number 1, then you don't get to whine about nobody buying books.

That's the ball game.  If you don't think other people's books are worth your money, you don't get to be my friend and you don't get to tell me how messed up everything is.  And this isn't just for NaPoMo, either.  It's for everything. 


3.  If you don't "sell" poetry, you don't get to complain how nobody "gets" your poetry.

You have to spread the gospel of poetry.

You have to teach people to love poetry.

You have to encourage other people to write poetry.

You have to make people believe poetry can change their lives.


* * *

Another way to promote poetry is to give poetry away.  Like the above rule 1 suggests, if you have books of poetry you don't like or will no longer really go back to (admit it, you all have a few) then give them away.  I am not taking part in the Big Poetry Giveaway this year, but I have already given away at least ten books of poetry this year, so I don't feel guilty about skipping out. 

No offense, but . . .

I will not be taking part in most of the hoopla associated with National Poetry Month.

Don't get me wrong, I like you people.  I really do, but I just can't bring myself to participate in all of the festivities.

NaPoWriMo?  Opting out.

The Big Poetry Giveaway?  I really don't think so.

Poem in My Pocket?  Nope.  I'm probably just happy to see you.

* * *

Now for the hard part---telling all of you why I won't be playing any of the reindeer games with all of you, even though I have for years and have been happy to do so in the past.

I will not be trying to write a poem a day for the month of April because I have a new manuscript to work on.  Oh, I love Robert Brewer and his month long running blog of writing prompts, which has evolved into a chapbook competition, but I just can't do it.  I just can't commit to the rigor of trying to write a new poems every day while I try to edit my manuscript ( a book of landscape meditation) and get it into shape for submitting.  I am submitting it to exactly two presses and two presses only.  If neither of them wants it, I am fully prepared to go through Amazon myself and self publish it.  For me to feel remotely good about that option, I need to know what I have is the absolute best manuscript possible.  That means no cute poetry bullshit, which NaPoWriMo is for me.  It's fun and games, and well, screw that.  I've got to work.

I will not be participating in the Big Poetry Giveaway because I have already been giving a lot of books away.  My books (both ones I have written and just ones I own) have been flying off my shelves for quite a while.  I have given away over 50 copies of my latest book, Sailing This Nameless Ship, and at least a dozen other books written by other people in just the last several months.  If I might be honest for a moment, my postage budget is stretched thin and I feel I have given enough for this year.  Too thin?  Too selfish? Well, that's okay if you think so.

I teach high school, and by this time of the school year, I have crammed so much poetry into my students, me carrying a poem in my pocket, or having my students do so, would just be more hassle than it's worth.  I mean that.  Trying to get my students to carry a pom in their pocket and read it at the drop of a hat is a task not worth wages.  I would much rather let it slide altogether.  My students know I am  poet and some know I have had relative success getting my poems out into the world, and not a fuck has ever been given.  I have been preaching the gospel of poetry for 15 years at my school, through bad times and good, and nobody there really cares.  Every now and then I have a conversation with a faculty member, but really, that's just small talk on the way to other things, and I am not so sure it should ever be anything more.

So, I'm out.  I am supportive of you participating, but it just isn't for me.  I will not miss it, and I don't think I will be missed, either.

Coming Clean. Well, sort of . . .

It's Friday in this part of the world and that doesn't mean all that much to most people, but it's as good a day as any to talk about a recent development which has been the center of my life for several weeks.  For those of you who know me in person, you may or may not be surprised about this revelation, but I bet you some people will will be saying to themselves it makes a lot of sense.  For those of you who do not know me in person but have had e-mail interactions with me will probably react in much the same way.  If you don't happen to know me, well, no big deal, right?

Recently, I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.  Yes, that Asperger's Syndrome, which rests on the autism spectrum.  The recent edition of the DSM (I forget whether its number 5 or 6) removed AS from its list of disorders and placed in simply within the boundaries of Autism.  It doesn't maker a big difference to me where it is placed because no matter where I am on that spectrum, I am still me, and I still have to deal with all of the same crap. 

A little while ago, my wife wrote a blog post about my diagnosis and some of the difficulties in dealing with being married to someone who is identified with AS.  I think she was incredibly generous considering all of the stupidity and frustrations she has put up with over the past 20+ years of being married to me.  If you have the time, you should go to her blog and read her take on the subject.  As for mine, I am still trying to figure a few things out, but I have a few things I want to say now.

I am not really comfortable talking about how this revelation has made me look back and re-examine my marital life, so my first thoughts are going to be about my life as a poet.  I have been serious about poetry for quite a while.  I started writing when I was 15 or so, and I got serious about it when I was about 20.  One of the things I thought was wrong with me and my poetry was not being able to write with what I perceived to be the 'linguistic depth' as other poets.  Now, I realize that one of the common disorders which accompanies Asperger's is something called Alexithymia.  It's the sub-clinical inability to 'identify and describe emotions in the self,' or, at least that's what Wikipedia tells me.  Well, I have it in spades.  When I took the profile questionnaire my numbers weren't off the chart, but they were quite high.  Imagine my astonishment that one of the special interests I had developed (poetry) as people with AS are prone to do, is hampered by an inability to do what said special interests requires.  Simply put, I am a poet who cannot identify or describe his emotions.

Suddenly everything became clear.  My poetry tends to focus on place (landscape meditation in particular) because I have an inability to express my own emotional status.  My descriptions remain clinical and disembodied from my psyche because I cannot express how those natural landscapes affect me on an emotional level.  My poetry, if not landscape/place oriented alternates between simple description and direct and blunt trauma because I cannot interweave emotional complexity into the language.  I think it's why my poetry publication has a history of being hot or cold, on or off. My poetry is either showing up in all sorts of places or it is playing the hermit.  Even more telling than my publication history is my patterns of writing themselves.  I think I hit a vein of subject matter, much like William Heyen in certain ways, and I write like mad, sometimes drafting an entire manuscript's worth of poems in a two month period from beginning to end.  Between those periods, poems are rare as hens' teeth, if they come at all.  It is not uncommon for me to not write a poem for a year or even longer, yet here I am once again with 50 pages of poetry towards another complete manuscript of poetry only months after my most recent book was published---and that the end part of a four year streak of book publications.

Please don't think I am bragging.  I look back and I am thrilled I have come so far with what I can only guess at being a severe deficiency when it comes to writing poetry (a guess because I really have no way of comparing with the alternative) and I can't help but think what might have been if I was not saddled with AS and/or Alexithymia.  I look at all the poems I have wanted to write but couldn't, knowing now part of the reason was I cannot express my own emotions in a way which makes sense.  I look back at those poems and mourn their loss, remembering how I agonized at my inability to write poems with the craft and depth with which they deserved to be written.

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone (not just the poets I know) who has had to bear the brunt of my callous and rude behavior.  I look back and see all of the time I spent dominating conversations and being so self-centered when it came to sharing this life in poetry.  I also see how my behavior caused some people to walk away from our friendship in frustration, having tried everything reasonable before jumping ship.

Finally, to my wife, Becky I would like to state again and for the record how deeply humbled I am that you would put up with me for so long, especially since most of that time there was no diagnosis to explain so much of my bad behavior.  If ever there was a person on this earth deserving of all the good graces and good fortune emanating from the universe, you are that person.  I love you and thank you for everything you have done for me.

Manuscript Update: March 5, 2014

I have a title for my book, or at least I think I do.  I am not one for a lot of tinkering with titles, so when I get a title I like, I tend to stick with it---sometimes to my embarrassment.  When I named my book, Hobble Creek Almanac, this was some time after I had heard of and read the marvelous book, Blood Almanac, by Sandy Longhorn.  The strange part was that this was the title.  It felt right.  It was and is right.  Still, I feel a little sheepish because I am certain the idea of an almanac came to me from an unrelated  direction but I know people are going to say, "yeah, right."  It happened to me before.  Another friend and another book.  I thought I had a great title and when my friend reminded me of her book title and how close mine was to hers, I immediately changed mine.  I was embarrassed to say the least.

This new book is going to be called:

Lake of Fire:

Landscape Meditation Poems

from the Great Basin Deserts of Nevada

I have approximately 45-50 pages complete, and the poems I am writing for the book now, are coming slowly, more methodically.  This is what usually happens to me towards the end of a manuscript.  

I have to make one final declaration before this goes a lot further.  About half of the poems from this manuscript, so far, are reclaimed poems---one offs I have been writing for quite a while.  Some were already ready to go when I found them again, but many have had to be re-tooled, re-imagined for what I have in mind for this book.  

I am also considering what good an introduction to the book might be, whether it will come off as an earnest attempt to say something about the book or an exercise in ego.  I am writing an introduction right now, but I do not know whether it will stick around or be gutted from the final edit of this book.  Who knows?  It may find its way in and out throughout the remainder of the process depending on my mood. 

It's time . . .

I think it's time I start to make a comeback onto my blog---a comeback of sorts.  I am starting to write a new manuscript of landscape meditation.  I have long since given up on the question of whether it is bad luck to talk about a manuscript before it is finished.  What I have accepted about myself is that once I have decided what my next manuscript is going to be, there is very little I can do to change course.  Win, lose, or draw, my mind will zero in on what it thinks I should be working on and keep dragging me back to it until it is finished.  I may write other poems over the course of writing the manuscript, but I may as well just submit to the facts.

Like I said, this new book I am working on (I have about 20 pages) is primarily landscape meditation, and it is about the geography of where I have been living for the past 14 years---the Nevada/Utah border.  I live in a small town on the edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats, and I started writing a few poems here and there about the landscape almost as soon as I moved here.  However, it has only been in the past several years where I have seen marked improvement in the poems I have been writing about this place.  That has become my new focus.  I know the poems will be a difficult sell (I understand more about the why of that almost every day) but I have moved past my urge/need to rush myself.  With all of my wonderful good fortune in the realm of publishing over the past nine years I do not worry so much about what is going to come next.  This manuscript has no deadline, and I am beginning to learn how to let things come to me instead of frantically searching for them.

It's also time for me to move on in other ways.  Not too many people read this blog, so I am at ease with telling you all this next issue of Hobble Creek Review will be the last.  This next issue will be the journal's 20th issue and that feels like a good place to bring things to an end.  There are a lot of reasons I could give to you regarding my decision, but all you really need to know is I am not enjoying myself enough to keep it going.  It was a noble experiment and a teaching tool for me when I needed it, but that time has past and that's all there is to it.

The revival of this blog will hopefully mean a more frequent posting schedule.  I plan to write more about a whole host of topics and be a better guide in the writing an publishing process than I was for Hobble Creek Almanac.  While this new manuscript is not new territory in terms of subject matter and voice, I do feel it is different this time around because I am both composing new poems and I am resurrecting old fragments and discarded poems to see what new life can be breathed into them.  Some efforts have been successful and others not so much, and I want to be able to talk about all of this with you.

Enough for now.  I am going to try and start posting again at least three times a week.  I can handle that, and I hope you can, too.

Book Review: Kelli Russell Agodon's Hourglass Museum

Hourglass Museum

Kelli Russell Agodon

120 pp., White Pine Press

ISBN: 978-1-935210-51-1

$16.00

In Kelli Russell Agodon’s latest book, Hourglass Museum (2014, White Pine Press), the reader is immediately immersed in the fragmentary mind and reality of the struggling artist.  The book’s narrator struggles to move beyond the appreciation of art and live a life in art.  Beginning with the observation and ekphrasis expressions of other, predominantly visual artists, Agodon uses her narrator to first try and contextualize herself (the narrator and quite possibly Agodon herself) with art itself, and then moves both narrator and reader to the expression of a life in art through poetry.

Broken into several sections, the early poems in the book are fragmentary, highly metaphoric, and simply stunning.  Here we see Agodon’s narrator asking questions (both literal and rhetorical) of artists, trying to learn how to create a life in art.  It’s a painful series of questions on some level.  Not the heartbreaking pain of survival and moving past tragedy, but painful in the sense that as one’s yearning to be an artist grows, so does our frustration.  I mean: How do you exactly start to be an artist? How do you defend your devotion to art when others expect something different from you? Take for example these images even from the poem, “The Broken Column” which opens the first section:

Tell me how you suffer―

in brushstrokes or synonyms,

cigarettes or sickbeds.

*

I think we all love something we don’t talk about.

*

 Soon enough, in poems like “A Moment Ago, Everything Was Beautiful” and “Portrait of a Couple on a Cliff After Twenty Years Together” the reader is swept into the feminine difficulties of domestic life, reminding us without beating us over the head what difficulties face those (mostly women) who have chosen to try and balance a life in art with a life in the home.  The poems are not anti-male, nor do they seek to punish the male perspective.  They simply and quite elegantly remind the reader that a woman’s life in art has the added complications of expectations and gender roles which are even today, still biased and stereotypical.

The fragmentation of the first section, poems which seem to defy structure and not allow the reader to settle into any consistency, are in my way of thinking, an extended metaphor for lacking the ability to exert control over the many realms upon which an artist must exist.  However that in itself is a misnomer.  Agodon’s poems in the first section are well crafted and organized, as to enhance the mounting frustration of confident self-expression in art.  Beginning with “Line Forms Here,” Agodon confesses secrets to the reader, and after providing us with this information, she demands even more from us.  The poems which follow, specifically “Frida Kahlo Tattoo,” “How to Make a Picasso Cocktail,” and, “Drowning Girl: A Waterloggled Ars Poetica” the anxiety of the artist is addressed head on, with a directness which is both delightful and stunning.

The second section is called Sketchbook of Nudes,  It consists, depending on how you want to read it, one long poem, or a series of untitled fragmentary poems.  Here, Agodon’s narrator takes the leap of faith very much described by Kierkegaard.  As artists, we have to trust there is an audience for our work.  As artists, we need to express ourselves regardless of what comes next.  As is often the case, I suspect Agodon has fictionalized part of her real-world dynamics to use as material for her poetry.  Early on the second section, Agodon states:

I asked if this would all work out

Yes

you said as if you were lying

*

and then later:

show me the escape route for artists

*

and later still:

we are the stories we tell ourselves

*

Without titles, this long poem, or series of shorter poem pulls the reader beneath the surface alongside of the poet.  She is beneath the water’s surface and we struggle to breath as we swim within this sketchbook.  Why?  Agodon, in this section, forces us to go along for the ride with no signposts to mark our way.  There is an urgency which reminds me of labor and birth.  Well, the birth of self as an artist if not the literal birth of a child.  Here we travel with the poet in-utero, where there is no stopping.

If  the second section is the birth, then the third is almost certainly an education, a step by step accounting of how the narrator is becoming the artist, from the development of craft and technique through aesthetic (expressed primarily through the color blue), and the projection of the artist life for one’s self and those who surround the artist.  The poems here reject sadness and shut out regret for the decisions made.  Here we see the poet building up reasons to be the artist, justifying the poet’s life and reject the urge to apologize for making room in her life for poetry.

Something’s shifted here (her), too.  Poetry is a talisman against the bad things which happen to us.  Poetry becomes the channel through which grief and confusion can flow, and a context by which the poet may frame a life.  It is no longer simply a means to an end, but also a place to inhabit.

By the time the third section has completed, the reader is anxious to see the artist in all her glory and powers.  Poetry is no longer the thing outside of the artist; it is the world she inhabits.  The final section is a recounting of the artist’s triumph---how to live a life rooted in art while living all of the other lives either thrust upon her or taken on my choice.  We read of marital bliss and the realization that living a life in art has made a better life possible, even with all of the complications which the artist must endure.  Where earlier poems were fragmented, the unity and cohesion of the poems in the final section reveal the secret the poet was trying so hard to discover in the first section.  Art is not a distraction or a radical element.  It is art which steadies the artist’s life.  We practice art so our lives will make sense.

The poetry in Hourglass Museum is worth ten times what you will pay for it.  There are so many wonderful metaphors in this book I hesitate to share them with you because each is so masterfully woven into the very fabric of this book I would be quoting pages at a time.  You deserve to read the book in its entirety.  Hourglass Museum is the first book of poems in quite a while that makes me want to tell all my friends about it, even if they already own a copy.  Kelli Russell Agodon has proven yet again how devoted she is to the art of poetry and how integral it is to her life. 

2013 Poetry Life In Review

Putting my Spotify on "random" as I begin to type this, I have experienced a bit of synchronicity:  The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" began to play.  What a fitting opening for me as I reflect on this past year.

This past year has been one of great writing success but at the price of a healthy dose of reality.  This sums up several other people's posts reviewing their year, too.  Being in good company (as far as  I can tell) I will take that and my Spotify coincidence as a sign the universe is speaking directly to me and will hereafter channel my thoughts in an unfiltered manner.

1.  I have had two full length books released.  This was by both design and by serendipity.  My book Hobble Creek Almanac (Aldrich Press) came out first, and was accepted amazingly early in the submission process.  In fact, I found Aldrich Press by way of my friend and fellow poet, Jeff Newberry.  As it turns out, his wife, Heather, designed the cover art for the book.  The book has received a good reception and some remarkable reviews, for which I am eternally grateful.  Design and Serendipity.  My next book, Sailing This Nameless Ship (BlazeVOX), was picked up after a long and arduous process which had it's origins in late 2008.  For years I labored under the assumption the poems were not the kind anyone would ever want to see.  Then Geoffrey Gatza from BlazeVOX suggested we put the book out as an e-book.  I was thrilled because it seemed to be the best way to unburden myself of the manuscript.  However, shortly after the book was accepted, Gatza asked me if we could just make the book happen as a physical entity. As it turns out, I was able to pay Heather to create some wonderful ads for STNS. Serendipity and Design.

To think I would have two books, let alone two books released in the same year was an entirely foreig concept t me even three years ago.  In the past nine years, I have seen four poetry chapbooks and three full length poetry collections come to life.  I still have a hard time conceptualizing it as I look back over what has transpired.  This year with the two books in quick succession has me thinking 2013 is a professional highlight I will never see again.  Oh, I hope to write more books, better books, but I cannot see a time when I will be this fortunate again.

2.  I received a Jackpot Grant from the Nevada Arts Council to aid in the publication and distribution to the tune of $873.  I have been applying for the Nevada Artist Grant for the past 14 years, with only one recognition in the form of an honorable mention in 2008.  Receiving this grant was more than money.  In a state where only two major population centers exist (Las Vegas/Henderson and Reno/Sparks) it is a hard thing to remind the powers that be there are other places in Nevada where the arts exist.  Living off the grid certainly makes this sort of recognition all the more special, and I am sincerely grateful.

2.5  I attended a writing workshop in Boulder, Utah, where I was treated to some really fine workshops and close reading exercises.  It was a really great way to recharge my batteries in preparation to returning to the active pursuit of writing poems---an activity I have not undertaken for more than a year.  Oh the ideas came in drips and drabs, but for a long time I have been turning away from writing for the most part, wanting to get out from beneath the weight of the business side of writing/publishing.

3.  The down side to this year, professionally speaking, has been the invisible barrier I have run into while trying to promote these two new books of mine.  It can be summed up with my inability to return the favor.  I am not affiliated with any university or college.  Not having my MFA or my my PhD, I have nothing to offer in return for having instructors put me into the mix for readings and workshops.  Am  I qualified to teach writing workshops?  I think so.  In spite of not having advance writing degrees I have managed to ave more than 100 poems, four chapbooks, and now three full length poetry collections published.  I also edit an on-line literary journal.  I have been teaching for 16 years.  On those counts alone one might think I could very well teach workshops about the non-MFA route to creative writing.  But the reality?  Because I cannot point to presentations at AWP, cannot promise readings, and cannot buy books to teach in the classroom, I do not rate.  I have been flatly rejected and ignored by colleges and former professors alike.  Even with the offer of  doing the work for free, my presence is (to quote my son) "neither needed or wanted."  I know some of it has to do with my remote location, but I know distance is only a part of the situation.

* * *

As I look forward, into 2014, I am hopeful for my writing.  I am hopeful for my ability to get more people to read my poetry and possibly take a chance on me as a reader.  I have no idea if anyone will, but in the absence of spreading the gospel of poetry, I will still endeavor to write it.  In the words of Bill Kloefkorn, "The writer, for better or worse, always writes."

Another Education Rant: Complexity is not a Disease

“Life's hard. It's even harder when you're stupid.”
                                                ― John Wayne

            Being a teacher, I have plenty to say about this idea.  Of course, there are different kinds of stupid I need to acknowledge so you know where I stand on such things.  Stupid ranges all the way from simple ignorance of the facts or life skills due to lack of exposure, all the way to the willful ignorance and idiotic behavior regardless of training and as a result of willful disobedience to natural law.  The latter of these has natural consequences often summed up by facial tattoos featuring cartoon characters or misspelled affirmations, the inability to string five words together without the crutch of profanity, or a perpetual blank stare in response to any question requiring the smallest amount of critical thinking or curiosity.  However, the first kind of stupid, that of simple ignorance, has a marvelous cure, and that is a basic education provided by the state free of charge if one so desires.  I am writing in defense of that free education.  After all, I am a teacher in a public school and I have an instinct for self preservation, right?  Unfortunately there is a war underway against a fair and adequate public option regarding the education of our citizenry which compels me to speak up above and beyond the threshold of self preservation.  Part of what I am going to say will be an attempt to dispel what I think to be a myth about education and part will be an attempt to point to what I feel is the real problem facing education.  At no time will I claim anything research related other than to point at problems of perceptions.  Everything you read will simply be my own ideas.

            I was educated in the 1970's and 1980's.  As such, some people might be tempted to think I am going to tout how stringent my education was compared to that of public schools today, that the students today do not care as much about their education as I did when I was in school.  Well, I am not going to go down that road.  It might surprise you to learn that contemporaries of the great Greek philosophers make the same complaints you hear today: That the youth of Athens no longer cared about their educations, that the standards of education have slipped.  It has been something every generation laments and a common complaint for more than 3,000 years, so I doubt that's the problem with education.  I mention my age to highlight the transitional place I hold within recent education trends.  I was in high school when computers were new, and before the advent of cell phones.  And while I teach now, with the inundation of personal technology, I have to tell you it is my firm belief the students have not changed, but rather it is the world which has changed around them and that those changes have created false impressions by those who are in a position to make changes regarding education. 

            You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a study, a parent, or a legislator claiming some fundamental flaw in education exists, which if left to its own devices, will destroy the United States of America.  "Test scores are down, internationally."  "Our children lack real-world skills!" "Teacher unions are choking our economy and schools."  "My child cannot pray in school."  "Children don't care anymore!" "We need to step in!"  "The federal government needs to butt out!"  "Charter schools are the answer!"  "Charter schools are not the answer!" Take your pick or add your favorite to the list.  They say admitting a problem exists is the first step in solving the problem.  Well, what if the problem is that too many people think the answer to fixing education boils down to fixing one issue?  What if the problem is too many people are only willing to look at the issue from their myopic perspective?  What if the problem is that our culture is the victim of it's own education system and is no longer interested in accepting some issues are too complex for a 10 minute solution?

            You see, that's what my point is.  I think we have forgotten as a culture that there is more than one perspective.  We have become polarized beyond the point of seeing the complexity of an issue.  We want the simple fix.  We want something or someone to come along and tell us everything can be fixed with a single program or shift in procedure.  Well, it can't.  Let me make this easy for you:

·         Many foreign nations only test and publish the results of their best students.

·         Many foreign nations do not even offer education to all of the population.

·         No profession with an average starting salary of 36K/year has the potential to strangle the economy.

·         When it comes to bad teachers remember this: You rarely hear stories about good teachers because they don't make for entertaining stories on your local news.

·         If you feel the one flaw in your child's school is that your child is being deprived of religious freedom in the school because of a lack of mandated prayer, please tell me which prayer is appropriate in a pluralistic nation.

·         Do you really think children in the U.S. are so different than those in other nations?  They do care, but they just care about different things than those who are observing them.  They have real world skills, but again, those skills are different than the ones we learned at their age.

·         The Federal government is problematic, but necessary to ensure there is an equity and fairness regarding education.  Without it, very few states or communities would enforce equal employment standards or pesky laws like Title IX.

·         If you object to the money being spent by the DOE, there is of course evidence which suggests money doesn't make a difference, but then again, not all investments can be measured in dollars.

·         Charter schools, when run well, can offer an excellent alternative for both parents and students, but in many cases do not perform any better than district run public schools. 

There is no simple and straightforward truth to be had in the realm of education.  Nothing you point to can fix everything in education with one, sweeping reform.  No Child Left Behind was based on cooked books from the Dallas, Texas School District.  Common Core runs on the incorrect assumption that all students have the ability to learn concepts at the same pace. 

            For a moment, let's look at the current trend.  Some people look at the Common Core standards as an encroachment upon local communities to decide what is best for their kids, and from what I just said, one might incorrectly assume I said the same thing just now.  Well, I didn't.  There is a huge difference between the political agenda of  centralized authority and decentralized government control of education and that of an assumption regarding the abilities of students.  Common Core is not flawed because it seeks to bring up what has been popularly coined as "rigor" into the schools, nor is it a sin to try and require that all U.S. schools maintain certain minimum standards for teaching critical thinking skills, core subjects and assessments.   The problem with Common Core is that it robs in part the true professional his or her ability to determine what should be taught to a particular student or group of students regarding a specific concept or skill.  It limits the very creativity it proclaims to instill through its methods. 

            Again, the problem as far as I can see, is perspective.  Too many people who are not educators have too much say and control regarding education.  Legislators who have not spent more than an hour in a classroom since their own primary/secondary educations look at the situation from their limited perspective, colored by their political agenda, and make decisions regarding how best to educate students they will neither know or even meet.  Another argument against the Department of Education?  No.  Without the DOE, urban and rural students would be shortchanged funds vital to providing a well rounded education, and in some places any kind of basic education. 

            But before you think I am simply going to turn myself into some Education vigilante and this short essay into a manifesto, teachers need to let go of their tunnel vision, too.  They need to get off the cross they have nailed themselves to and donate the wood to Habitat for Humanity.  Teachers need to realize that just because they are professionals caught in a widely derided profession, it isn't an excuse to ignore the concerns of those who are not educators.  Of course there will always be parents who unfairly threaten to bring lawsuits against the school district if their precious snowflake of a child fails a class, but that is not a product of the education system.  It' a product of that second kind of stupidity, and if one believes in science, then the problem is usually self correcting.  Teachers need to recognize new programs like Common Core and NCLB are born out of a misplaced frustrations.  If teachers are real educators, they need to be willing to teach people (not just the students on their roll sheets) that complexity is not something to be feared.  And while it begins in the classroom, it is not a single front issue.  Teachers need to be willing to discuss complex issues whenever and wherever it arises.  Teachers need to abandon the "it's not my job" attitude which allows people to continue perpetrating so many harmful myths about education.

            Summation:  Education is too complex an issue to be solved by any one issue.  Everyone involved in the education process needs to own up to their responsibilities and needs to recognize there are far too many perspectives for single issue solutions.  Parents, do you want your kids to learn more?  Demand more from them.  Hold them accountable for their poor decisions regarding education.  Demand more from teachers while understanding teachers have been given rules and regulations which increasingly limit the flexibility sometimes needed to meet the needs of any one student.  Understand that when you treat a teacher like a babysitter and expect the teacher to shoulder all of the responsibility in your child's education, it's like asking a stool to stand on one leg.  Teachers, do you want parents and students to take the education process more seriously?  Demand more from them but understand that parents do not understand education the way you understand it.  They view education like a patron/client relationship because so many other aspects of our culture fall into that structure and they do not see the value of education as something which may not manifest itself for decades.  Parents want measurable results, and students will seek the easiest path you give them.  Don't pretend to be shocked when they pull out the stereotypical 'bad teacher'  narrative to try and get their way.  Legislators, do you want to improve education in a genuine and meaningful way?  Stop pretending to be the "Education Candidate."  Everyone knows you are full of bullshit.  Remember this:  Almost every South American dictator  in the 20th Century had a two item platform---educating the children and getting the trains to run on time.  Stop pretending that legislation can fix education.  Stop pretending you can fix education by bullying teachers, parents and students.  Make legislation which protects rights and creates opportunities. 

            Everyone, want to fix education?  Stop pretending there is only one perspective or values system with merit.  Start looking and listening to each other.  Stop thinking there is virtue in willful ignorance of the realities which face us regarding education.  There are some genuine, honest-to-god problems in education which need to be solved, but none of them will get solved if we don't first accept complexity as a constant, and our own ignorance as the real variable.  Remember what Truman Capote said.  "It is no shame to have a dirty face. The shame comes when you keep it dirty."  It's time to wash our faces.