Afterthought

Looking at calendar and remembering that our fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving. Same is true for Christmas. Be thinking about what alternative plans, if any, we want to make.

Two new guys and one old one

Well, old in the sense that we had not seen much of him all summer. Beach Boy Burke made an appearance, as well as two visitors. Michael Whelan, a loooongtime friend of Dennis', was here from D.C. and had a great poem about the collapse of the Towers, a subject he had personal acquaintance with. Terrific title: Before the Fire Fell

The other guest was Jerry Seminary, who may turn out to be a regular. He is a Viet Nam veteran who pulled off a good rhyming poem heavy with meaning. Fort Hood, Texas: why was the Army band playing a jaunty "Georgie Girl" as it sent the young recruits off to be killed? Obieduid pointed out the emptiness in the lyrics of that particular song.

The group would have consisted of ten men and me if Edie had not shown up with Life, a poem which brought out some strong differences in opinion; some of the guys considered it victorian, archaic and stilted, too flowery. Mr. Willis thought it witty, sensual and feminine.

We all agreed that Art had one especially great verse about an old woman being "knocked down among the rocks on Mount Battie by a stout eighth grade girl..."

Markle was fresh off the ship from the Old Sod and immersed in the Ulster Scots dialect, which none of us understand well. He did print on lovely sea paper and it could have been song lyrics.

Paul took a political slant with Election, consisting of "pranksters, promises... rich with tricks, treats...words on the wind". Good stuff.

Alan's Hidden Valley was an experiment in combining Native American and Asian culture with another tale of Grandfather Carp that we agree could have been tightened up.

I noted strong similarities between portions of Dennis' Morning Prayer and scriptural verses. "Thus the very sins I condemn, I bury in my self...". It was certainly not a serene poem, but one of self examination.

Mike B. observed passing a church when a funeral was being held, with his New York Times and his sausage and egg on a hardroll, everyone going on with their everyday lives.

Tom's long work reflected a lot of Provincetown and was compared to a John Updike novel. Why did I write down Mary Poppins and was Art sleeping?

Tim "Showed and Telled" with a photo of his studly body xeroxed next to his poem The Stud, which brought up questions of audience and who we are all addressing our work to. (I write for myself most of the time.) The Stud contained what might be interpreted as insider information for a gay audience.

It was a bit of a rush to get all in before 9 p.m. Whole crew went to Smit's.

Oh, I almost forgot me. I wrote about my catalpa tree and memories of my father as the first anniversary of his death approaches. It seemed to strike a chord with several people. Tom made an interesting suggestion for rearranging lines.

Sorry to have missed Larry and Tom on Sunday, but I was chaperoning the Skip Parsons concert here at the library. It was a great concert and had a big audience so I didn't get out until almost five o'clock.

Yes, we can have a Fifth Thursday meeting on Oct. 30. I booked the room for us. Happy Halloween if I don't see you. I am wearing my spider hair ornament today.

Cathy wasn't there

Just a note on another enjoyable little crossover I had last night when I "guest-hosted" for Cathy at Lifelines. I hadn't attended in a long time, so I dragged out a virgin piece I had written about a year ago, polished it up and brought it along so I wouldn't look delinquent.

Robert and Amelia Anderson were there, an older couple that I am familiar with from the Bethlehem Art Association. They are both avid photographers. I discovered that Bob is a WWII vet who brought what he had written about his ship almost sinking in the Persian Gulf (back in 1945!). Amelia wrote about cake decorating and brought some photos of her cakes. It was good to get to know them better and get a sense of how creative they are.

Steve Stein is a 30-ish writer who has been around for several years. He and I must have the same strange sense of humor because I was practically rolling on the floor from his account of getting a tetanus shot. He is a good writer.

Tim joined us with a "Fire Island" kind of piece he had been trying out on some friends. I told him that it struck me that he used to bring prose to the poetry group and now he brings poetry to the prose group. I think we have turned him into a poet.

Murray Block and Ellen Zunon had both mailed me that wouldn't be there. No word from Fan who is a regular and also a philosopher.

Anyway, I had a good time, wishing that I had more time to write and more energy to attend the group regularly.

See you all next Thursday.

When Worlds Collide

Okay, I may be a little dramatic, but an enjoyable crossover happened this week, as philosophers met poets, with both meetings on the same night. I sat in on the last five minutes of the philosophy and found it pretty heated. Good going. I wish I had the energy to attend more often.

At everyone's suggestion, I will attempt to create a calendar here on the blog with poetry events you submit to me. As there are various other calendars available, I will only use listings which involve EOTNP members in some fashion.

As you all have probably heard, Obeedude arrived in Ireland (thankfully with no stroke, heart attack or other stress-induced ailment). Now for the meeting...

I'll start at the end as Dennis wow-ed us with the last poem of the evening, perhaps his most accessible to the rest of us ever. It was "A Godly Plan" with a strong flow, some unusual-for-Dennis repetition, not a single unfamiliar word. A bit of confusion over the word "liver" - as in one who lives, not the slimy organ. Most popular line: an orphaned bundle on the porch. Dennis was present in the poem as "yes, me, who walks likes Moses parting seas" - how Dennis-y.

Tom's poem prompted a spate of conversation, as his poems never do. This one seemed to strike a chord. I liked the title and am thinking of writing about it: The World According to (Your Name Here). Tom spoke of Ezra Pound as his inspiration and I am also going to look at Pound further as it sounds like he was a terrific character and I don't know a lot about him. Art, Dennis and Alan all referred to the poem as reminiscent of the beats, "beyond existential", flavored with Gregory Corso, Kerouac, etc. To me, it was merely another of Tom's mysteriously challenging events and, altho I asked, I am still not sure what made this one different.

Okay, I'd better write faster.

Mimi: North Carolina Morning, I liked the title. Great bird characterization - "blusterer" was a wonderful description, altho difficult to speak. Mimi shared the underlying meaning of the poem which wasn't, and didn't need to be, apparent. Btw, in my world bird have knees.

Letting Go from Philomena was a series of short verses all referring back to the title, not connected to each other which (duh) I didn't get until it was explained to me. Alan suggested asterisks between stanzas to make it clear. Philomena used Obie's word "cocoon", which seemed unfair seeing that he was not here to listen to it.

Opining from my own experience, Stacie was right on the money again with her library story of quibbling over new chairs, and took very little criticism. We also could find no fault with Art, altho My Sweet Crab began with a very colorful reference to castration found in Deuteronomy. Did anyone else see the PBS special on the Aztecs and the Spaniards this week?

Dennis remarked favorably on Dan's growth as a poet, whose I'm Out of Touch poem needed some tightening up, but was full of good imagery. Dennis also repeated his enthusiasm for Paul compiling a chapbook; someone suggesting the title of 25 Pictures of Days Gone By. Alan said it would appear as an autobiography of Paul as a juvenile delinquent. We talked about the efficacy of using first or third person.

Last up (actually, first up) was Alan who set up an interesting battle between the ancient carved warriors of Japan and the cheap plastic toys belonging to father and son respectively. Good mix of dialogue and narration, and a leap in form and subject for Alan. There was some debate about cutting and rearranging.

I am now going to work on our new calendar, and will also post your events on the VPL online calendar for the public.

Oh, I almost forgot - I will be guest-hosting Lifelines for Cathy on October 16 and would love to have some of you join me with a short prose piece. How about it? 6:30 p.m.

And - Larry is the featured reader at Sunday Four on the 26th. It is the same day as the VPL Fall Concert so I have to be here, but you should all go! If you prefer Dixieland Jazz, come VPL to hear Skip Parsons.

Just felt like saying hello.

I saw Catherine Norr on Monday night(after a long absence from EOTNP). She was at the Obama fundraiser at the Schreibers' house and tells me she is planning on seeing us soon. Mimi and Dennis and spouses were all there as well as Catherine Anderson and me and about 25 others. Good food, good conversation.
Obie must be winging his way over the ocean by now. Thank goodness. I was anticipating him having an excitment breakdown before takeoff.
See you all this Thursday. BTW, Larry Rapant and the philosophers will be meeting in another room at the same time. I would like us all to greet - perhaps some of you would be persuaded to join the other group, too. I have attended a couple of times and found that they have good discussions.
Oh, there is a new Billy Collins book out called Ballistics. I read a good review. He is one of my favorites.

for Chin (my poem)

She was my long-haired black beauty with a fluffy white chest and golden eyes. She cuddled with me in bed Saturday night and the next morning sighed that small, quiet sigh between living and dying and was gone. She had been born in my kitchen 14 years ago. Now having lost both Chin and Ollie, I am vowing to never love a cat again.

Okay, there is a workshop called Writing from Art on October 4 at the Albany Institute of History and Art, which includes a reception and reading on Nov. 7. I have a couple of flyers if you are interested. I imagine you can find it on the AIHA or HVWG websites. It sounds very creative. There is also a MEMOIR PROJECT reading series and related writers' course offerings going on at The Art Center that some of you might be interested in. Details available here.

Mimi's poem was a work of art, literally; called Parallelogram, it was designed in that fashion, with one word.........."jump"ing out. Very clever. Obie drew rabbit ears on it. Obie had an excellent poem called "Three Sketches on the Amateur Lepidopterist and his Wife"; I learned what strippers are (relative to butterflys). I have assigned Obie a word: cocoon. I now own dollop, Dan owns maudlin and Alan wanted pensive. If anyone else wants to claim a word, let me know.

Alan is promoting his Wednesday evenings at the Perfect Blend in Delmar. There is one next Wednesday. The suggestion was made that his poem last night about the dying Earth was a little dense and needed some air between lines . Liked the repetition of the first three lines as the last.

Dennis took a walk through history with a popular offering about heritage, predominantly Irish (I wanted the foreign phrases taken out, as usual - why were they in Spanish?) Mimi said it was "pleasurable to hear". Paul inspired a conversation about roofing which some of us found particularly touching because of the memories it evoked.

Another installment from Stacie was wonderful, about a Pakastani gentleman who works in her library. She does wonderful character sketches and we are enjoying her series.

I enhanced my education, learning what an eidolon is - a Greek word for ghost or spectre. Dan wrote about them in a dream-like manner. We all agreed that because he was inconsistent with his use of gerunds, it would be stronger if he changed them all to present tense.

That's it for this week, folks.

I'm sorry, Paul

I must apologize to Paul for convulsing when I read his poem aloud - my excuse being that it was so right on target as a metaphor for aging that I over-dramatized my presentation. It got a lot of laughs, but I don't want Paul to be upset. It was a wonderful poem about a car heading for the final garage and it could have been my life. I don't remember if it was before or after, but at some point, sitting next to me, Paul wielded the mallet with such enthusiasm that Stacie jumped out her chair.

Stacie's installment in her Poetry Verite series In the Library was a conversational account of a library cleaning lady and her interaction with some stereotypical librarians (and their inability to make decisions). All particularly liked the ending which wrapped up a cabbage story. You had to be there.

Everyone seemed unclear about the numerical references in Tim's Family-Tree. The same repetition in it that I called "pounding", Art considered" chanting". We talked about cutting the ending, changing the title, eliminating the whole first stanza, etc. Came to no conclusions.

Another difference of opinion arose about the typeface used in Art's poem Anima ex Officio. Obie, our sensitive artist, objected to the ornate font as distracting from the message. I loved the curly, swirly look of it and Art explained that he had purposely used it to resemble an invitation, which indeed it did. Anima is the undeveloped female quality in men, used in this case in a political statement about Sarah Palin. Great work.

Obie came with a terrific "five-o'clock poem" (as did I). Sad to say, no one but I recognized "the big "O" sing(ing) in the background". Roy Orbison, folks! Anybody ever hear of Roy Orbison, one of the top two best solo artists of the '60s? (Okay, who is the other one?) It should have been a dead giveaway when Mark repeated the phrase "it's over" several times in the poem. A classic hit, still singing it in my head today. Anyway, it was a poem of loss and regrouping, very successful.

A mood poem from Philomena opened with a dyn-o-mite verse which started out: "In the debate between the sun and the moon, the moon cheats" - we all loved it. I suggested that she try a re-write, taking out the personal perspective and the "I". Mark observed that recent work has shown Philomena's voice to develop.

Weirdly, both Moriartys had crows in their poems. Mimi quoted Philip Levine "I wouldn't put a crow in a love poem" and proceded to do just that. Art observed that it was very tight, incredibly creative, reminescent of a Matisse. I picked out the "One Good Line on which the poem hangs" (hereafter refered to as OGL as I am going to start looking for them): "Love mimics the sound of things, it flattens the palm, stings the cheek."

Dan did some very good, non-gimmicky rhyming in The Laugh-less Clown. It flowed nicely, had a few extra words here and there, but generally solid.

What Shall We Talk About, Dennis? We will talk about Dennis' questions: What are your dreams? Who taught you to dream? What stands in the way of you achieving your dreams? What do you do now? No fit? Call it something else. Poem needs more than one reading.

I am taking the"on the porch" phrase out of my five o'clock poem as you guys suggested and will continue to eat my colorful grapes in the shade of the catalpa tree. What color the grapes are, I will let you guess. Yes, I also thought it sounded like WCW's sweet plums poem. Whaddaya want - it was five o'clock.

Poem of the night for me was - ta-dah! Alan's Habitation Before Check-in Time. I like snake poems, especially talking snake poems - and both Alan and Obie did very expressive snake voices. A bonus was the inclusion of the poem with several language translations, for no particular reason except that the computer was able to do this. Nicely done and my favorite Alan poem.

Announcements:

Ally is down again with pnuemonia and was forced to cancel a wonderful trip. She is much cheerier about the disappointment than I would be.

Mimi's Delmar Writers' are presenting reading at the Bethlehem Library on Sept. 21 at 2 p.m. All invited. Refreshments!

Bus trip to Woodstock does not have many signups. Please do it if you are going to.

Don Levy from Albany is the next reader at Sunday Four on the 28th. I will be in Woodstock, I hope.

Let's All Go to Woodstock

We were almost up to full running speed last night with a couple of noteworthy absences. Good to see Art after a long summer and Dennis back from his European tour.

I am trying to drum up business for the library bus trip to Bethel Woods Arts Center, which was the site of the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and a trip down memory lane. It is on the 28th of September and costs about 40 bucks, which includes the price of the museum ticket. I would love to have some friends to travel with, as I am signed up already.

I was poem-less again, as the word processor in my brain seems to be on the fritz (is that a Marion expression, or what?) Others were full of words, however, particularly DS who came with a whole packet, and also passed out bookmark schedules of the Sunday readings. His submission Envy was written in the air between Milan and London - that's kind of like name-dropping, isn't it? It was a good poem that Alan pointed out was more universal than conversational or personal. "...old age, it kills with wrinkles, the heart an empty house". Good stuff.

I forgot who mentioned the idea -maybe Art- that if you have one good line in a poem, everything else hangs off that line. I like that. One small stroke of genius to carry the whole operation. Alan had a solid one in each part of his two-parter - "my house still only bones..." and "the black crows of ink...". We decided that the connecting thought between the two parts was personal struggle and growth.

Stacy brought an installment of her Poetry Verite Series about a new staff lounge in the basement of a library. It illustrated the failings of bureaucracies and was sharp, funny and quite wonderful, although Dennis pointed out it was very prose-y and needed a different form.

The comments on Ally's poem about wishing for an easy death reflected the restfulness of it, the seemingly easy flow of gentle words..."sapphire sky, angels dance, soar above the blue planet," etc. Also a good one.

Art was "blown away" by Philomena's offering, inspired by what she told were three conscious breaths - a meditation experience. A small discussion ensued over the spelling of wicker (as in chair) and the different kinds of meditation. I enjoyed the "RUMF" of the overhead fan. The other Moriarty was not present, btw.

On to Tim who had written something unique to the group, which Dennis said was a revival of a medieval tradition. Tim gave human actions and traits - such as Laughter, Ridicule, Honesty, Humility and Calm - their own persona and used them in a story. It was attention-getting and successful (someone mentioned brilliant). Comments were made that it could be tightened up considerably and possibly changed to the active tense.

Beyond the Males and the Pales - which turns out to be a political quip - was the title of Mark's wonderful shape poem, complete with rhymes and design. I don't know why Mark was surprised that we all loved it.

Paul, the chronicler (is that a word?) of bygone days, took us back to the day when kids actually worked to earn spending money - like way back in the '50s. The usual discussion about publishing his work followed.

Okay, Dan's poem called Perfection took some discussing, too. Alan observed that it was about the classic neverending battle between good and evil, and we all agreed on what great progress Dan has made in revising his style and trying out new approaches. This was a great example of that and worked well. Now that I've said that, I'll admit to being the one to suggest some rather drastic remodeling of the poem - removing the word perfection from everywhere it was used, and it was used a lot. I wanted to make the poem into couplets and take out whole lines. Strictly personal input from me. We also talked about the use of the word completion instead of perfection.

So - there you have it for last night. Edie fluttered in poemless in the middle of things and, altho a few went to Smit's many of us wanted to get home in time to hear Obama.

from Munchkinland

Dennis has sent us a postcard attesting to the gustatory delights he is encountering abroad- brats and kraut and pig parts as well as "beers the size of Canada and strong!" Georgia has become the "queen of subways". He sends peace and love, mailed August 11, arrived today. Not bad.

BTW, is everyone doing Tom's suggested "pigeonholing"? If so , bring results to the next meeting.

I Own Dollop

I am laying claim to the word dollop - a dollop of tartar sauce, a dollop of blood, a dollop of freedom, compassion or rage, whatever, it is mine. Dan wants maudlin and if anyone else wants to own anything, you'd better speak up now before all the words are taken.

That said - there was a rather prolonged debate last night about the use of people's names in the body of poems, prompted by Alan's use of mine and Mark's in a poem about High Point Cemetery, spying out old soldiers of old wars, including picture- snapping ghosts. Best line: gravestones are portals

Edie and Tom now have a bet - five bucks - that Edie cannot find a proper name in a poem unless it carries an explanatory modifier such as friend, uncle, dog, etc. We'll see.

Everybody seemed to like Tom's Next Vacancy, although we were detecting (incorrectly) drug references throughout - I mean, really - "three nickels? Magic Eight Ball? "the lines you blew"? "who can feel the next hit"?

Paul's Sacandaga River Dam should be submitted to Adirondack Life or other publication. All his work has tenor that deserves to be incorporated into his own book.

Joyce joined us after an absence with a revised edition of the blue damsel and the dragonfly in a sexual liaison. Suggestions included changing the title to Cirque de Soleil rather than offering an explanation at the end.

Fresh from Provincetown, Tim wrote a sensitive piece about aging men which was a great "painting", as he titled it. A little confusion was mentioned because of ambiguous pronouns, but no big deal.

Mimi became "The Hulk" in a stream-of-consciouness work that she intends to be presented aloud. I was the only one who didn't like the green fingernail humor at the end, feeling that it made light of what to me was a serious and sad poem.

Dan used his word maudlin in I Am the Poet, having some good conversation with his muse with a mystical flavor. Suggested dropping or moving the last two lines. I learned a new word - "sufi". Look it up.

If poems were wishes...then in this poem, love would be found as casually as a penny on the sidewalk. Great line, everyone seemed to agree in a very nice poem from Philomena. We did want the Beatles "mystery tour" modified.

Saving the best for last: Stacie's poem the other woman absolutely grabbed me. It was perfect, not a misused or extraneous word. Bravo.

I, alas, had no poem again. I have been too busy falling off decks to write.
See you on the 28th.