WHY I WRITE: A Memoir on Creative Writing

"I stood up and dropped some money on the table. 'You talk to damn much,' I said, 'and it's too damn much about you.'"
--Raymond Chandler, from The Long Goodbye.

My pal Doc Nagel recently started blogging. This made me think about things, partially because I was forced to read the blogging in question, partially because I was forced to confront the fact that the Doc writes at least as well as I do and, often, better, and partially because the Doc insinuated that the fact that he had not been keeping a journal for the past fifteen years is pretty much entirely my fault.

Now, I normally wouldn't mind copping to that, because I know from experience that influencing Doc Nagel and interfering with his psyche are often one in the same, at least from his perspective. But there is something uniquely onerous in the accusation this time around. Back when I was actively engaged in the writer's world, I knew alot of people who wanted to claim that writing was therapy. Only problem was they were still leading these painfully unfulfilling and screwed-up lives, so, obviously, if it was therapy, it was piss-poor and uneffective therapy. Still, it was cheap at the cost.

Problem is, for Doc Nagel, writing, or in this case blogging, is therapy, and it's effective stuff. Especially now. Doc Nagel doesn't like war. It weighs on him, keeps him up nights, even when the war is as stupid and inconsequential and feather-weight as this damn dumb mess our knucklehead of a President has gotten us into. I don't like war either, but, for me, the idea of writing as therapy cheapens the writing. Hell. I'm not just writing for me. I'm writing for you. For anybody. I'm writing to make a point, and not just to myself. Doc has his own built-in audience, friends and colleagues and like-minded folk, but if I'm doing my job properly, you walk into my poem on the war one way and walk out the other end transformed or changed in some way. Maybe I haven't changed your mind about the war, but hopefully I have changed the way you see things. Maybe I've hip-checked you into a different angle of perspective.

See? It's not just about me. It's also not just about genre, or category or tradition. It's about being inspired to do the thing that I so uniquely do so that I might inspire others to see things from a different point of view.

So why does it bother me that Doc Nagel is blogging and I'm not? Doesn't make sense, does it? I mean, he's got his reasons, I got mine, his work for him and mine work for me, so everything should be simpatico, copacetic, and generally cool, right? I mean, it would be ludicrous to feel guilty over Doc Nagel's incessant writing, since he is writing from a different perspective and it has nothing whatever to do with my own craft. Wouldn't it?

Welcome to Ludicrous. Population: me.

Shortly before the Doc started blogging, I went through another absurdity. I went through what felt like a dry spell, even though I was writing fairly well and fairly often. Problem was, I felt like I was just writing about me, for my benefit. This might sound odd, but for me, as a writer, solpsism is the gravest sin. So I beat myself up over it, which lead to another couple of poems about me and my shadow, which lead to more self-flaggelation-- and not the good kind, either. It was about that time that I became aware of Doc Nagel's blogging. This lead to yet more self-flaggellation, because I was writing, but, I thought, I was guilty of talking too much, and it was too damned much about myself.

This lead to a revelation for sorts. My previous efforts at poetics, all of them, have at root the same basic fault, which is that they take into account what I read and why I write, but they haven't really focused on the phenomena of written communication.

Take this by way of example: Doug Adams versus Ken Kesey. I'm having a kind of flashback moment, from my brief days in Grad School, when the visiting luminary asked me and one of my mates what we were working on. My pal-- Tersh Palmer, or Marc McCacheren, memory fails-- gave his subject, then the luminary turned to me. When I announced that I was doing a comparative paper on Samuel Beckett and Raymond Chandler, the luminary asked "What did you do, pick the names out of a hat?" He was so deeply wrong; Chandler and Beckett had far more in common than he ever imagined.

Adams and Kesey have far more apart than you might think. Here: Kesey started with One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, a polemical that succeeded because it was outrageous and impossible and utterly appealing to the dumbass radical literary community, who deeply wanted a way to tell-off the burgeoning conservative Republican movement, which was rapidly finding new and important ways to tell the "liberal" egghead community (read: dumbass radical literary community) that they no longer mattered. Kesey went on to write Sometimes a Great Notion, a far better, more greatly considered, better rounded, less polemical, more human book, which avoided being largely ignored by the fact that it was authored by the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The latter book, sadly, didn't have the advantage of offering polemical hooks by which to rip a non-existent political contingent ripping the guts out of a non-existent put-upon minority considered insane by the political establishment because of political views or the lack thereof. If that doesn't make any sense to you, it's either because you're seen the movie and not read the book, or because you've talked to too many people who've seen the movie and pretend they've read the book.Adams started out by writing radio scripts. He went on to write the multi-volume trilogy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. One of the most endearing things about Adams, to me, was his tendency not to be able to conceal his life-long reticence to concede his so-called talent. Adams was a limited writer-- gimme a second, and that won't sting-- and knew it. Here's the difference: Adams KNEW he was a limited writer. All writers are; most don't admit it. Norman Mailer, for instance, not to say William F. Buckley-- God forbid me say William F. Buckley, and you can take that however you like. His knowledge of his own limitations as a writer was what really powered his prose, what infused his observations of the Being Human and the societies deriving therefrom and made them so sharp and real and funny.

Funny. Now there's a compliment. But I digress.

Adams, an outcast among legitimate lit society, embraced by nutcases, rabid serialist fans, and radio producers, went on to further his vision of the universe through a series of books, and, in one of the rarest accomplishments any writer can claim, ended it in a sequel-proof volume, Mostly Harmless, which ends with the protagonist, and any semblance of the universe in which the novels were set, being destroyed. No ewoks here. Not in the least.

Kesey, a darling of the literary community and the burgeoning counter-culture power structure, embraced by radical politicians and Hell's Angels and Hunter Thompson, represented by one of the most powerful publishing houses of the time ready to publish and publicize anything the man wrote, up to and including tip tabulations on bar napkins, went on to produce...

Nearly nothing.

Many will protest that I am dismissing the author, the founder of the Merry Pranksters, the symbolic heart and soul of the Hippie Movement that made this country such a rich and wonderous place, too easily. Many would be wrong. Kesey really had something with Sometimes a Great Notion. When he lost his Great Notion, he lost his art. He got caught up in hubris and movement and easy cynicism and easier optimism, fueled by drugs and easy assurances that, as Thompson put it, someone was tending the light at the end of the tunnel. Adams suffered through self-doubt for the entirety of his writing life, up until his sad, not-quite-tragic death, while exercising (a demise that, had it happened to a character in one of his books, would have been accompanied by the victim's commentary: "Of course."). My point here is not that one must suffer for one's art. Plenty of people are capable of suffering while not producing anything of either artistic merit or utility. My point is this: The worthwhile writer produces something greater than the ego of it's producer. Kesey either never learned that lesson or forgot it early. Adams, I think, never had to be taught. It was ingranined in his very heart and soul. (I can't say for sure, but I think, from what I've read, those who knew Adams would confirm my assumptions here.)

(I also have to recuse myself: Adams kept on trying, often in vain, to produce. It was a lifelong habit for him, and, by all accounts, it was sometimes a rather pathetic vision to behold. But it was that lifelong habit that gave us the Hitchhiker's Guide series, and, although he was working on a third installment to the Dirk Gently series at the time of his death, I think the ending of the last volume of the Guide was one of the most tremendous literary gags of all time, and I think Adams took it chucklingly, gigglingly, howling-with-mad-glad-laughter, to his grave with him. I also think God taps him on the shoulder every time someone reaches page 276, because, God knows, it's a treat that never gets old.)

Most of the authors I admire, I think, had this. Thurber, Hemingway, Steinbeck at his best (which is, I think, about everything besides Travels With Charley, which I still haven't made it all the way through), Wallace Stevens, T.S. Elliot before Pound got to him and convinced him that anything he wrote, if sternly considered, was worth publishing (which lead to that damned load of crap about cats that turned into that wretched musical). Ezra Pound, I think anyone will concede, lacked it, which is why the asshole had the temerity to publish the Cantos, and hired talent to laud it as a great literary accomplishment, and, thus, subjected legions of poor, defenseless literature students to the misfortune of having to plow through the mess and an Aegean Stable's worth of footnotes, endnotes, and explanations, before coming to the conclusion that the whole thing is a load of meaningless hooey, the literary version of laudable puss.

(I think I stole that from someone. I hope not.)

So the question becomes: why do we communicate? Yes it does. Don't argue with me.

WHY? WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?

This almost automatically leads to a quagmire of the worst kind. The esoteric nature of the question leads to so many dire prognostications that, very often, if there is a choice of whether or not to raise the question, the obvious choice is not to raise it. Mario Puzzo offered his own brand of equus offal when asked: "I think there's a certain poverty to everyday life." This, in itself, might be a decent explanation, were it not for the fact that Puzzo is guilty of creating the Modern Gangster Myth, from the whole cloth, admittingly never having met anyone from the trade, which, in turn, created the majority of the mythology on which modern crime novels are based, which in turn created the mythology on which modern police work is based, thus contributing a whole new level of poverty to everyday life.

Other examples are more or less ironic, depending on your point of view. Jim Wayne Miller, for example, you probably have never heard of. There's a reason for this: Jim Wayne is a proponent of Appalachian Literature, which is to say he's written a bunch of hackeneyed short stories that get published in obscure journals and by tiny publishing houses that specialize in obscure authors who write hackeneyed short stories celebrating the purity of the Appalachian lifestyle. Mr. Miller-- sorry, I guess it's Dr. Miller, although no one can properly say why-- says that writers write because "We are incomplete." He's right, at least in his own case, but I don't see where he can speak for anyone else. Any number of a league of writers, from the Seventeenth century on, have claimed that the only reason to write is to get paid. This takes into account the Dark Ages, which is loosely defined as "That period of time when mankind did not know that the only reason to write was to get paid, and so became monks." Prior to that, everyone knew the only reason to write was to get paid. They also knew this about teaching, which is why so much way-out, bizzaro stuff got taught during the Golden Age, a period of time loosely defined as "Those centuries during which rich men's sons would, apparently, believe almost anything." Of course, by that definition, the age of the Internet is a Golden Age. If so, so be it!

Ezra Pound said alot of things about why people write, but I can never remember any of it. I'm fortunate in that respect. Oscar Wilde said (and wrote) probably the most about writing of anyone in recorded (that would be the key) history, but he didn't mean any of it. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said "You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say!" Then again, Scott said alot of crap. E.B. White wrote alot about writing, but, oddly, never about his own writing. James Thurber wrote about writing with E.B., but it was all concealed within the volume known as Is Sex Necessary?, and I'm not entirely sure E.B was in on the gag. Or, as G.B. Shaw once rermarked: "His Majesty is as a dose of clap." Grouch Marx, of course, is the true authority on the matter: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

So my point here, if I've read me correctly, is never to trust anything a writer says about why a writer writes. Lemme forward another kind of example: a web search, under the cue "I hate writing," yeilded 1,700,000 cue-specific results. Which is to say, people who hate writing hate it so much that they feel obligated to write about it.

Which is to say: writers lie. Never, ever trust them, under any circumstances. Except me. You can trust me. Honest.

I think I'm saying more about the nature of celebrity than I am the nature of writing. Which probably means that any of you who were reading this to get a glimpse at my understanding of the nature of literature are no longer reading. Hello? Anyone there? Hey, anybody?

THE MEANING OF LIFE, PART 3: KILLING EACH OTHER

One of the funniest things I heard while studying philosophy in college was this: language works because we all agree.

Wait a minute: I didn't agree to anything. This was all here when I got here. I never agreed that the word "pot" would mean that round empty thing with the handle, nor did I agree that the cat's name would be "Oscar," much less agree that the furry four-legged thing that purrs would be called "a cat." I learned the language in order to do a certain number of things: to get fed, to aquire things I wanted, and to please the big people who controlled whether I got fed and who gave me the things I wanted. I agreed by duress if anything.

Most of us stopped there: enough of the language to get the things we wanted, including enough to be able to lie our ways out of trouble, and that's plenty. The majority of us don't seem to need any more language than that. This is why so many more people are willing to go to war than are willing to sit down and read a good book.

(If it helps any, I didn't see that coming either.)

I can't stand it: I have to interject this here. A quick search on Amazon.com for the title "Bullshit Artist" yielded, among other things, this title:

"101 Music Business Contracts - Updated Edition - Preprinted Binder / CD-ROM set containing over 100 contracts and agreements for recording artist, musicians, record companies, managers, songwriters, labels, producers, indies and any and all others in the music industry. Entertainment law at it's best!"

If that's not ironic, nothing is. This only comes up because I was thinking about one of my favorite obscure writers, Breece D'J Pancake, of whom I doubt you've ever heard. Breece comes up because he was part of a small movement that produced, in toto, exactly one acclaimed writer, this being the affore mentioned Mr. Pancake, whom I am not making up, of whom you have never heard. This is due to the chief phenomenon of writing: exclusion.

Those who decide to learn more of the language than is needed to aquire the basics soon find that they have made a grave error, e.g. assuming that the others, who, having aquired enough language and gotten more or less what they require to thrive, would be impressed by those of us who have learned more language than is necessary. They are not. Most often, they are annoyed. Those who learn more of the language than is necessary for survival refer to this phenomenon as "jealousy." This, purportedly, is one of the perks to leaning more of the language than is necessary: we can use it to manipulate the meanings of other's emotions.

This doesn't work for long, though, as the others will soon learn the words we have assigned them and, paradoxically, use them against us. This leads to the formation of protective groups. once called "Collectives Literatique." This phrase was later shorted to the more manageable "cliques." These collectives protect the literate not only from the marginally literate or semi-literate, but also from the other literati, as the collective can, by agreement, decide that the other literati aren't doing it right, thus excluding them from their clique. (cf. Dryden, The Dunciad, hic in MS.) The reason some of the literati need protection against others of the literati is that some of the literati owe others of the literati money. No, no no. The reason some of the literati need protection from others of the literati is that there's not a whole lot of money in literature because the majority of people, e.g. those who didn't learn more of the language than they needed, find the rest of us annoying, and, as suprising as it might seem, there are few people who are willing to pay to be annoyed. (Also complicating the matter, those who are willing to pay to be annoyed are, more often than not in the theater, where they are well accommodated, or, in this century, in Hollywood, where they are mostly employed annoying each other.)

Hemingway, John Donne. Sylvia Plath. Ann Tyler, James Dickey, Beckett. Sorry. It was time to drop some more names.

For a while I was a member of one or more of these cliques, but never any of the very profitable ones, mainly as a consequence of happenstance. Exactly two of the members of one of the cliques I joined ever did anything in the literary world: Mary Kratt, who has become something of a local celebrity by championing local history, and Steve Sherrill, who has published one novel at a small house, has a contract for a second novel with a larger house, and consequently no longer returns my phone calls, much like Larry Ferlinghetti. (That's not really fair. After all, in all honesty, Steve never returns anybody's phone calls.) Also, I have on my bookshelf a huge volume of works by members of one of the largest and most bizzare literary cliques of them all: the Iowa Writers' Workshop, of which my dear pal Steve Sherrill was a member for a while. The volume doesn't include any of Steve's work, nor any work by any author whose career ever amounted to anything. At The Workshop, writers learn how to hone a piece down to the fine points, how to work with metaphor and symbolism, how to draw vibrant characters to fill their pages, and, above all else, how to viciously verbally abuse their fellow writers to the point of bringing them to tears. This is of inestimable value, unless you ask the attendees of The Workshop who have outstanding student loans. Those individuals will probably be able to affix a price to the experience.

So have I thought about joining another clique? Not really. Not in any kind of serious way. It's almost like that old Groucho bit: I'd never want to be a member of a club that would have somebody like me as a member. The few times I've had an opportunity to join one of these cliques, in the recent past, I've been passed over; then whern I've gone back to look at why I might have been denied entry to the clique, I've discovered the one fatal flaw of all cliques: they all write just the same, and about just the same things. So if I don't look through dirty windows at a life of squalor, if I'm not gay, wasn't abused as a child, don't have ethnic issues, am not of Asian descent or better, don't have a degree higher than a BA, or haven't translated Le Fleurs du Mal from the original for a facing-page edition to be made available to institutions of higher learning, apparently, I'm out of luck.

Mind you, I'm not bitter. Really, I'm not. The people represented by these cliques really do need to have their concerns addressed, as they are members of groups which society at large has treated pretty shabbily over the past few centuries. Additionally, some of the behaviour addressed in these literatures is the sort of thing that, in theory, decreases on exposure, shrinks from sunlight as it were. And really, what do I have to say that's so damned important? I suppose I could lean back on the idea that it's not what I say that's so important, but the fact that I say it so well, but, to be frank, I wouldn't buy that bullshit argument coming from anyone else, why should I buy it for my own sake? That's the same sort of crapola that's been propping up Bill Buckley's career all these years, not to mention Tom Wolfe. (And if I have any fervent desire, it's not to mention Tom Wolfe.) I thought, for a short time, of trying to employ my writing as a voice of reason in the war, but I thought, early on, that, in the first place, there are plenty of people trying to do that, few succeeding, not a whole lot of room for my voice, not that it would be heard accurately, if at all, and besides all that this stupid little pissant war would probably be over by the time I got someone to trouble with my bootless cries. (Check, check, check, check, and check.)

Which is all by way of saying that, as of even date, I have no hope in hell of getting published (and it's easier in hell-- more literary agents there than anywhere). I'm not winning the contests, being let into the cliques, or in any way being appreciated in any demonstrable way. And yet I keep writing, and these days I'm feeling pretty good about it. (This is not meant to conceal the black moods I get into when I get that sort of sense of immediacy and hopelessness that it's midnight and I'm not famous yet; just to say that I'm not in one of those moods just now.) I enjoy writing, despite the ugliness and impossibility of the publishing world.

SO WHY? WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION, YOU MADDENING FREAK?!?

I don't have to if I don't want to. Then again, if I didn't want to, why would I be doing this.

Doc Nagel's initial verdict on the progress here so far is in-- in fact, it was in late last week, but I haven't gotten around to responding to it. His take is that a) it's not really a poetic theory, and so far he's right, it's not, and 2. what I have here is a bit in the mold of Lacan, instruction via abuse, e.g I'm trying to describe that I consider the legitimate art of writing by abusing those who are not practicing the legitimate art of writing. Which would be all well and good, except the poeple I'm abusing are either dead or not listening (or, in the case of Kesey, both). (I'm sorry. Kesey doesn't really richly deserve this abuse. Luckily, he's not paying any attention.) Maybe I'm not doing poetics. Maybe I'm just blogging.

But of course it is a poetic theory. Look at any other poetic theory in the world, and here's what you'll find: it makes outrageous claims as to the purpose and accomplishments of poetry, it makes even more outrageous claims about the unique ability and power of the brand of poetry being touted, it claims that the specific brand of poetry being touted is essential for the well being of the human soul, and then it gets fouled up in politics, most often something that sooner or later floats with a fascination with a fascism of one sort or another. Why is this? Because most of the time the person writing the poetics isn't really interested in poetry; most of the time the author is after power and position and career advancement. As I iterated in my last installment of poetic theory, nobody reads poetry-- so much for it being essential for the well being of the human soul-- poetry has little or no impact on the real world or society (see point a), and if the particular brand of poetry being touted does have any unique powers or abilities, the author of the poetics may never know it, because no poetic ever written ever described, in any way whatsoever, the poetry it was purportedly speaking of. I mean it. I studied this stuff intensely when I was in college, and really, they might as well have been writing car commercials.

Example: Andre Breton. His name came up in the news last week because his estate decided to auction off his "art" collection, and the final take was something along the lines of 3.6 bazillion Euros. The "intelligentsia" went about handing out fake money and notes telling people that they were contaminating their money-- keep in mind, these are French intellectuals-- by purchasing the effects of a man who was "a greater poet than you have dared to be." I went looking for info on Breton, with the vaguest feeling that I had possibly read his stuff or read of him, probably in college, maybe in grad school.After reading a few entries on web pages it all came back to me. I had read Breton in college, and quickly realized that he was a man whose position, although he seemed not to know it, rested on his social status (or rather that of his family), and was more accomplished at talking about what poetry and poets should do than actually doing what he claimed poetry/poets should do. He championed (and defined) the theoretical realm of surrealism, although what he defined as surrealism was actually more akin to the tenets of the transcendental meditationists than anything the literal definition of surrealism might suggest. He was more famous for what he wrote and said about poetry than for any poetry he actually wrote, although what he was really best at was having people take goofy pictures of him. (Also, he was reputed to have a quite formidable sense of humor, so that gives him big points in my cool book.) But then there's this:

"Comrades:
"The activity of our surrealist comrades in Belgium is closely allied with our own activity, and I am happy to be in their company this evening. Magritte, Mesens, Noug�, Scutenaire and Souris are among those whose revolutionary will�outside of all consideration of their agreement or disagreement with us on particular points�has been for us in Paris a constant reason for thinking that the surrealist project, beyond the limitations of space and time, can contribute to the efficacious reunification of all those who do not despair of the transformation of the world and who wish this transformation to be as radical as possible."

I want to take this moment to make crystal clear my feelings on Breton: I admire him as a historical figure for any number of reasons. He opposed war and did efficacious things to help it end soon. As were many others, he was enthralled by the communist movement, but he was wise and sane and human enough to renounce it when communism in the Soviet Union had very clearly become just another excuse for fascism. (To the clear discredit of French intellectualism, it is the opinion of many scholars that this failure to unconditionally support the ideology regardless of the actions of the state put the final nail in the coffin of the surrealist movement and lead to the rise of existentialism and, later, postmodernism, both of which ideologies forgave the abuses of the Soviets and the Central Committee as the unwise blunders of a young nation with an experimental ideology. Mass executions and pogroms, in my opinion, can hardly be covered with a quick "oops."

So there you have it. My opinion of Mr. Breton is simple: I'm for him. I think he was a worthwhile human being, and even though I don't particulalry like his poetry, I do see what he was after. But here we have a clear example of how poetics fail: Surrealism didn't change the world. For a generation's time, there was a hard and deep argument as to what surrealism actually was, and the school Breton championed, the one that claimed that surrealism was what his pals did, not what Dali and company did, lost the argument. Say the word "surrealism" today, and anyone who knows the word will most likely think immediately of bent pocketwatches and napping manatees. Breton's notion of surrealism and what it could achieve as a movement, frankly, were laughable. I have heard it argued that everything from communism to post moredernism to republicanism has shaped the modern world in an almost subliminal way, influencing even those who are not proponents to bring about the current state of socio-political evolution. Bullshit. The political and ideological movements chamelion themselves to match as closely as they can the conditions of the modern world. The world changes as the world changes for reasons that no ideology can embrace, much less anticipate, much less influence.

Also, no ideology can really embrace poetry. Ideology ruins poetry. I can think of many poems that were all but destroyed by an injection of ideology. The reason Frost was so successful, and the reason he was the only US poet laureate worth more than a rat's patoot, is that he let his ideology derive from the poetry rather than try to force his poetry to serve his ideology. That, I think, is the way it ought to work.

What truly amazes me, though, speaking of Breton, is that people actually forked over money for the vast amount of crap he collected throughout his life. I mean, he had the strangest taste for weird looking ethnic junkola. The French government bought alot of it. That makes a certain amount of sense.

OK; so where does that leave me and my poetics? A long time ago, back in my college days, I decided not to let my poetry serve politics. Largely on the back of radical poetry form the 60's, most of which was fairly bad, I decided that, a priori, politics made for bad poetry, not to say bad poets. Parts of this discovery were pretty painful. Like discovering how much better a writer Leroi Jones was than Amiri Baraka. (Same guy, for those of you who may not know. Leroi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka when he joined, if memory serves, a radical back-to-Africa campaign in the late 1960's. After that, everything was so infused with the radical black message that, frankly, it sucked, although some of it was still well-written in patches and jolts.) The final nail was driven into the coffin upon my discovery of HD, or Hilda Doolittle-- see a pattern emerging?-- who changed her name shortly after (again, I'm going on memory here) the establishment of the "Imagist Manifesto," which was a boring piece of crap declaring that there was one way, and only one way, to legitimately write poetry. She then proceeded to write this thin, bitter, self-sevring crap that had as it's purpose, largely, the discreditation of D.H. Lawrence

Now grant that the discreditation of D.H. Lawrence might be a true and worthy quest-- and I know whereof I speak, having had to read damned near everything the snivelling craphound ever wrote as a part of a survey course I suffered through in grad school. It didn't serve her poetry very well. The tenents of Imagism were good, basic, and, it seemed to me, would have served very well as a general poetic theory or as a set of guidelines to write poetry by. But Hilda screwed up; she was so intent on being the top cat poetically speaking that the work she pumped out was either weakened by too strict adherence to the code or ruined by a transparent, bloody-minded ambition. My conclusion: politics. Politics ruined Hilda's barbeque.

So: the first point in my poetics, avoid politics.Boffo, sport.

So long as I'm on the subject of politics, I'd like to take this opportunity to get in a dig at the idiots who run-- and are published in-- the vast crapfest that is know as The Pedestal, with the sole and single exception of W.S. Merwin, who, for reasons passing understanding, has been included in their numbers in the current edition. I can only say this: It must have been hard to refrain from smacking John Amen in the head during the interview. Kudos, Herr Merwin. Kudos!

Anywho.

Well, hey, let's go back to that. I stopped reading The Pedestal a couple of years ago. It was shortly after 9/11, and there was a call-- Amen issued the call-- for poems related to 9/11. I sent in Where Nothing Ever Happens, which I wrote at about ten thirty the morning of 9/11. Now, follow me here, because this is likely to sound like sour grapes, but it isn't. I had been receiving, via e-mail, a notice of every pubication Amen scored for about a year. It was one of those blind list things, so I had no way of knowing how many other people were recieving it, but it was very clearly spam of one breed or another. Based on that I kept going back to The Pedestal, thinking now and again fo submitting something to the rag, but knowing that I wasn't writting the kind of introspective, confessional, depressive naval-gazing that the magazine supports. (Hang on; I'll modify that shortly here.) So, here, I thought, was a chance, an opportunity to offer what I had written for a good and decent cause for publication and, thus, public consumption. The special poet-9/11 issue came out some weeks later. And guess who wasn't in it?

Worse, the kind of crap that was in it was this sickly, weak, badly written, self-involved, bitter crap. So I was ticked. I was quite angry. I flew into a snit of high dudgeon. I got mad and I behaved like a complete shit-head and I said to myself "Fine. Just FINE! See if I EVER read your rag again!" (See? Not sour graping; not letting myself off the hook, either.) Shortly afterwards I got another notification that Amen had a poem placed in yet another crappy, whiny, wimpy quarterly. I sent him a rather rude note back, telling him I didn't care where his crap got published. Haven't heard from the bastard since. Wimp.

Those of you who read the first version-- or any of the previous incarnations of that version-- of my stab at a poetics are probably expecting this to be the point at which, characteristically, I turn into David Mammet. I'm going to dissappoint you-- in theory-- by trying to turn the diatribe above into another point of poetics. One of the most common things poets tend to lie about-- for example, our friend Mr. Amen-- is the importance of their work. They love to go on about how vital poetry is to society. Billy Connely has done the same thing. The claim has gone forth that poetry is a healing force-- see the above ramblings on poetry as therapy. And the biggest paradox is when a writer, facing up to the limited impact of his or her work, claims that the reason, the REAL reason, to write is because it's good for the soul. Spiritualist heal thyself.

Bullshit.

See, if the work were all that important, if it was so vital to the society, if it were a healing force, if it were all that damned important, then, ergo, we'd need absolutely all we can get of it. Ergo, vicious bastards like Amen wouldn't be running around excluding people from their stupid clubhouses. Poetry would look more like a legitimat art form, and less like the goddamned He Man Women Hater's Club. (Billy is Spanky; John is Alfalfa...)

This all violates a very basic portion of my notion of poetics: Poetry should be honest. Brutally honest, if and when necessary. Ergo, poets should be honest. Poets shouldn't have to rush about blowing their own horns, and they shouldn't have to go around making clubs to keep some in and others out. (Sure it's a pie in the sky hope. Hey, listen: it's a poetics. When did you think it wasn't going to be at least somewhat Utopian?)

Again, says the poet, patting himself on the back: Yer doin' a bang-up job there, Sportif.

I was going to start another section here, but, sorry, no; "The Magnificent Seven" is on. And I'm just a sucker for "The Magnificent Seven."

I'm writing this part while home for lunch. I have maybe a half hour, if I stretch it, and I am also trying to eat a pastrami on rye with provalone, mustard, and those terrific Kosher pickle slabs provided by the fine folks at Claussen. So I can't promise anything. Hell, what I write today might not even survive tomorrow.

I didn't survive "The Magnificent Seven". That's to say that I watched about the first half-hour of it before my wife and I were ready to leave-- we were at her parents' house, as we often are, for a weekend family birthday/Mothers' Day celebration, not that you give a rip-- and I kept catching on to all the fifth-business stuff, the stuff stuck in to advance the plot that didn't seem to require much attention at the time. Little things kept creeping out at me. Like this: Chris and Vin volunteer to drive a hearse carraige up to Boot Hill in order to give a burial to a poor indian, against the potential violent objections of local racists, but when they get to the graveyard, instead of going in and burying the guy, Chris calls for six guys to take the casket out of the rig, the local apartheid, apparently, over, done with, and never to be spoken of again. See? It's just too damned easy. And once I start seeing things like that, it's all over for me.

Another movie that I am done with-- for life, forever, completely and totally had it with it, never need to see it again-- is the film "Stand By Me." In fact, I'm watching it right now. (It just happened to be on.) (Trust me, we're coming back to poetics here shortly.) I bought a copy of the thing on videotape some years back, on the premise that I had seen it and enjoyed seeing it. On viewing, something about the film struck me as not quite right. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but something struck me as inauthentic, or perhaps disingenous, about the film. I held out for the final scenes, with Richard Dreyfus giving the final narration as The Writer before going out to take his kids to the beach, which is the scene I remember as getting me the first time, and it got me that time too, and I remember thinking "What in the HELL is going on here?" How could the film be so completely devoid of inspiration or epiphany, in spite, of all things, a fantastic performance by the late, grand River Phoenix? Some years later I was reading a review of another film that referenced "Stand By Me," calling it an "exploitation movie." Yeah; yeah, that's exactly what it is. So much of the film is so patched together and tacked on that the few really good scenes kind of get swept downstream, except for that last one, because Dreyfus, God bless his twisted soul, can salvage damned near anything. Even little things, like setting the story in Oregon when the original story was set in Maine, sticking in as many classic 50's songs as possible, casting Jerry Connell, insignificant things like that, caught in my throat.

Here's the thing: there seems to be a fine line between doing the popular thing and being popular due to a quality or qualities that can be appreciated. But there isn't any real rule to it. Just a fine line. "The Magnificent Seven" was assembled from Old West lore, current cultural requirements regarding racism, social assumptions about people of various cultures, and a strange admixture of mythical Samurai ethos and the code of honor among thieves. And it's such an amazing amalgam that, 98 percent of the time, I can buy it. "Stand By Me" is made up of the same kind of stuff, which was very popular at the time-- the revived music, the screenplay based on the forgotten literary work of an amazingly popular author, the narrator who brings not only detail, but also wisdom and insight, to the tale, the up-and-coming child actors, the young actors taking a chance to trot out their chops, and so on-- but the thing falls apart at the slightest probing. (Later on the same formula was employed in the film "The Sandlot," to absolutely no effect at all.)

Here's what I'm after (or so I think): the term "formulaic" gets tossed around a hell of a lot, especially in describing Hollywood's products, but really, what is there coming out of Hollywood-- or rather the movie industry, "independent" films included-- that isn't formulaic? Doesn't it all boil down to sex and conflict and violence, the human hockey game of life? Isn't all based on something that came before it? If it doesn't star the guy from the one about the place with the thing, doesn't it star the guy who looks like the guy, and isn't he playing opposite the chick who's the next whoever-the-last-chick was, even if we don't know it? And hey: isn't writing alot the same way?

Now, I don't mean that quite the way it sounds. But if you think of it on the molecular level, writing is like that. I mean, we have to use the words you know. We can't just make them up, because then we'd be producing gibberish, and none of you would have any idea what we were on about. We have to go so far as to pick a form ("The Novel," "The Play," "The Poem"), maybe even a genre ("The Crime Novel," "The Confessional Poem") to pour the words into so that our audience will know what to expect.

So the form I picked is poetry. I chose free-verse because that's where I seem to have found the most truth in the past (ah, Larry, if ye only knew). And into that I plant selected bits-- whether I really, consciously know it or not-- that are in my vocabulary of things that constitute a poem. I almost always find myself wondering, semi-consciously, if I need to stick in some more imagery or if I should tweak a metaphor while in the process of creating one of these things. More than that, I have the specific kind of form I have created over the years: free verse, calibrated lines, punchy phases, terse language, there's even a kind of length I adhere to. Notice the sections in the longer poems: they're comparable to the length of the shorter poems. And most of this is reflex: it's just what I do. More: when I write prose, especially when I write stuff like this, theoretical-hypothetical junk, I tend to slip in Brit-isms, things like "what I'm on about." It also slips into my poetry from time to time, but I think it's more prevalent in the prose.

Try this on: this whole thing, really, started years ago when John Gutermuth, internet curmudgeon-at-large and all-around nag, picked on me for writing free verse. I justified my work in several ways, all of which eventually ended with, as the central argument, "screw you, I'll do what I like." But I know, in my heart of hearts, that the real reason I write has to do with individuation, identifying myself as an intellectual and individual and spiritualist. So do I call that therapy? Sure. So long as we can all accept that it eventually back-fires, that it doesn't always work, and that, in the end, I have to deal with the fact that the one thing that can be consistently said about my writing is that it is, at the molecular level, formulaic.

And to take that to the next level, we need to adress a simple, basic question: Do you believe in God?

Again, you doubt me. Trust me: it does in fact come down to a question, and that's the one it comes down to.

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND WAL-MART

I grew up atheist, for a couple of different reasons; one was that my parents were atheist in a very science-of-life kind of way. The second was that I grew up with Jim and Tammy Baker, and, credit me, I saw straight through their con-artist act from a very early age. I might watch long enough for the puppet to finish singing the funny song (or whatever), but the second that smarmy bastard or his dingbat wife opened their yaps I was outta there. On the otherhand, my Grandad was a staunch churchgoer, in addition to being a very good scientist, and he took us into his church once or twice in our youths-- myself, my brother, and my sister-- in the hopes that we might be interested (I think, really, that he thought we might be inspired). Later-- and this is something that I didn't really grasp until later in my life-- he gave us hints about other things in life that were important, and among these were community and fraternity. It wasn't until his declining years, shortly before his death, that I grasped something that was both completely obvious and rather odd at the same time: he found it important to belong to and contribute the community, and thereby to fraternize with his fellow man, because God required it of him.

My belief systems aside for the moment: back to Douglas Adams. Adams claimed his whole adult life to be a non-believer, to be an atheist who didn't quite understand why it was required of him by the society to claim, profess, and defend his atheism. Moreover, his main protestation was that he didn't understand why the whole benighted, church-going world didn't think it a bit odd that the whole benighted world went to a church of one form or another. However, in protesting this facet of 20th Century social culture (or twenty-first, not that it makes a bit of difference in the slightest) he tipped his hand to something that he probably knew deep down but would have been shocked, dismayed, and probably even offended were it to be brought to his attention: Douglas Adams believed, very deeply, in God. He was, in fact, a great spiriualist.

Here are my cards:

Adams had a deep appreciation for the absurdity of the human condition, but more than that he had an appreciation of the absurdity of the human mind and the nobility of the human spirit. One of his most famous creations, Marvin the Paranoid Android, illustrated brilliantly one of the most central and identifying attributes of the human species, which is that all of our fabulous technology, all of the concerted efforts of humankind to improve our condition, in the end produces an inability in those using the technology to appreciate their collective condition. To have done that, or really to ahve done 90% of what Adams did in his lifetime, is to express a deep and abiding belief in the existence of the Almighty.

Cheese Rice. It's been like a month since I last wrote, and I'm just now getting back to this. Okay, not a month, but still.

Okay, so don't really have any actual proof. But there are a couple of things I'm after here: one of them is actually a little nefarious, which is to insist that Adams was a closet theist, mainly on the grounds that he objected a bit too strenuously and made a bit too much out of the supposed persecutions he faced as a non-Christian. The second won is to set up an argument that I cannot possibly win, which is this: the reason we write, I think, is that in many ways it brings us a little closer to an understanding of the ineffible, the sacred. The reason I can't possibly win this argument is that I have a seriously counter-intuitive take on it. Here goes: The tendency for religious institutions to co-opt the forms and claim them for their own actually weakens communication's ability to reveal the hand of God at work in our creation. That's why religious communications have to be so heavily subsidized by the church-- call that a generalization-- which is why, by and large, Christian rock sucks.

Think of it this way: Assume there is a God, a God who created human beings who communicate. We are the only species that communicates in a concrete and complex terms. Supposedly, we are the most complex and advanced of God's creations. Now, there are all kinds of ways we have chosen to worship and to personify or represent this deity through the ages. Most of them have been mechanical-- buildings, which present a huge contradiction in that they were by-and-large built by forced slavery and subsidized by organized, formalized religion, which generally isn't a practice endorsed by most religions, although as expressions of appreciation or the love of God go, architecture makes sense to me, for whatever reason. God also seems to have made us, many of us, thrill in the higher aspects of communicating-- never mind the irony that very often religion squelches actual complex communications in favor of ritualized chanting. de-bunking religiosity isn't actually on my agenda here. So: if God made us, and we thrill to complex communication, whether argumentative or purely creative or narrative, then when we indulge in acts of deep communication we are expressing a knowledge of, and love for, God. (See: I told you I couldn't possibly win.)

It's just dawned on me why I'm really doing this. And by this, I mean this version of my cockememe poetics: it's really just blogging. And the great thing about blogging is that, at any given time, you can take it all back. I take it back. I take it all back. Whatever it was I wrote, I take it back.

I take it back because of a variety of reasons, chief among them a current tooth ailment. It is my considered opinion that nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody can believe in God when they have a tooth problem, even less so when they're about to see a dentist. My ancient, bothersome, damnable upper left wisdom tooth, which I have been trying to get rid of for years, collapsed and disintegrated over the space of three days. The presence of this tooth itself is in part due to two years of excessivly painful and completely useless orthodontry, which included oral surgery to remove six teeth, which, the orthodontist claimed, would allow my wisdom teeth to grow in straight. As a result, my penultimate molar grew in sideways, ensuring that I would, occasionally, bite my cheek hard enough to draw blood. As those of you who know me well, of have read enough of my stuff, well know, I do like to eat, and I dislike being interrupted while eating, especially by my own pain and blood. I have asked no less than three dentists to remove the thing, with the result that one preferred to scrape the underside of my teeth beneath the gums, to no appreciable effect, and the other pissed me off by telling me that I needed to see a periodontist, to the appreciable effect that I cancelled my follow-up appointment with the son-of-a-bitch. My pending appointment is with the same dental practice, but at a different location, and, considering that this time I have a definite and appreciable and diagnosable problem, I expect no such inter-practice manuverings.

Years ago, many many years ago, while in grade school, I watched a film explaining the workings of the human body, which claimed that sugar, when combined with saliva, formed a compound which disolved the enamel of the teeth. The same film claimed that the saliva, properly maintained, cleansed the teeth. Now, as a grade-schooler, familiar with dental practices such as using a hard, rotating brush and pumice compound to "polish" the teeth and dousing the mouth with foul-tasting "floridite" rinses, both of which always left me feeling like a bomb had been detonated inside my mouth, I viewed the film with some skepticism. An inquiry to my teacher-- thank you, Mrs. Black, wherever you are-- brought the conclusion that, well, I suppose that does mean that saliva dissolves the teeth. Amazing. The revealing science of God.

Which, I suppose, is my little way of saying that, should such a supreme being exist, he/she/it must be one seriously contradictory creature. Not that I've never said that before.

I take it back again. I do believe in God. I don't believe, specifically, in heaven or hell or the prophets or the begats. I think the Ten Commandments are pretty good suggestions-- I don't believe in killing, and I happen to know from observation that adultery usually isn't very smart, nor often carried out by very smart people, and I don't see much value in the worship of craven objects, like, for instance, cars or golden crucifixes, and it's a good idea to honor you mother and father, even better if you like them and get along well with them. But, see, here's the thing: out of a half dozen judges I know of who have elected to hang a plaque at their bench procliaming the Rules of God, there's not one of them that hasn't condoned, by way of legal separation, adultery. Consider that the example: religiosity and hypocrisy go hand in hand, and always have.

I don't believe in the prophets or the blood of the lamb. I don't believe that Christ healed the lame or the lepers. I think Lazarus was just napping. But, for whatever reason, I seem to believe that there was a good guy named Jesus who went around telling people to be good to each other, and I seem to think that there is a higher purpose of some sort. And my favorite buildings are churches. For the acoustics. Because the sounds ring more beautifully.

Never been much for choirs, though.

Never been much for sermons, either. I love the 23rd psalm, don't much care for the rest of them. I used to date this chick who had a big, fat, ugly sister who belonged to this rotten Southern Baptist church where some members of the congregation said, out loud, that their choir was every bit as good as that choir from the nigger church across town. She sang in the choir-- the sister, I mean-- and she used a microphone while singing her "solo" during a minstrel-type hymn, a solo that was clearly scripted and modeled after the solos sung in nigger churches. They also had a passion play, wherin a deacon of the church played Christ, and went through the beating and crucifixion scenes with a gleam of pleasure in his eye and a barely disguised smirk on his face. He didn't see it as blasphemy.

Thanks, but no thanks. If the God they worship is the God who rules heaven, I'm not entirely sure I want to go.

GOD AND MAN AT WAL-MART

Just as I think that the desire to express, to communicate in the most refined terms possible, must signal a belief in God, I also think, equally irrationally, that the vast majority of communications commercially available cheapen His creation. The last time I talked to my erstwhile pal Steve Sherrill, he claimed that he was thinking about writting a "plot-driven novel" for his second book. That is to say, I think, and Steve would probably deny it, he had written his first novel, and his representation had reccommended that he write his next number to make a little more serious money. (His first publisher was one of these benificent firms that seek out "regionally flavored" works. This will all sound disparaging to Steve, should he ever read it. I don't mean it so.) I asked him "So, you're going to write a Grisham?" He snorted a laugh and answered "No." Grisham has the reputation of being a non-writer-writer, someone who has all the computer software and has memorized all the good plot patterns and has studied characterizations and gotten the ear of a good rep and aquired contracts from big publishing houses, but, really, doesn't know how to write. He mainly has that reputation because he's a lawyer, which really isn't fair, but these things aren't up to me anyways. I read Grisham's first book, and I thought it was a scam. I thought he started off writing a memoir of his early days practicing law, woven together with fantasies of getting rich, mixed in with some Mario Puzzo Criminal Theory. I read or tried to read two or three others, but I very shortly ran out of patience. There are alot of Grishams out there; Johnathan Kellerman, who likes to turn childhood trauma and it's resultant psychological complexes, Faye Patterson with her post-mortem topography of Charlottesville, whoever that twerp who wrote "Tortilla Flats" is, dozens of others, some I've read and many I haven't.

The heart of the matter is that these novels belong to a genre of literature that has, as it's main objective, the cheapening of the human experience. They have, as their prime directive, the notion that the human experience can be sliced, diced, tossed like a salad, and re-assembled at will without losing any of it's inherent meaning. They are wrong. They are greiviously wrong. And they write books that more people buy than read.

I read one of Grisham's latest, the novel entitled The Summons, a short time ago. It was breathtaking. A huge, wonderful, sprawling, dizzying mess of a book, that brimmed with observations that rang tremendously true, that didn't dwell as much on cliche as the past efforts, that was about half the length of any of his other novels, that he wrapped up with a shiny pink plastic bow in the last dozen pages. It was delicious, except for those last dozen pages. I mean, as a writer, I understand why he did it, but he honestly didn't have to. The most dissappointing thing, really though, was that I saw it coming. I knew it was coming. And it dissappointed me even though I saw it coming.

That probably also sounds like sour grapes. It's not. I do have a modicum of admiration for Grisham. I would join a club that would have someone like him as member, assuming they would have me. But it was a great novel, all except for that goddamned pink plastic bow. And I'd tell it to him to his face. Given that I think of writing as fullfilling some sort of higher purpose, given that I have this ridiculous belief that writing in some way brings me closer to an understanding of life, of existence, and, by extension, of God, and given that a joker like Grisham could queer the whole deal on the basis of making alot of money, that he can become rish and famous by spinning morality into candy floss, why in the living, breathing Hell would I bother to write?

Just a sucker, I guess.

A couple of days ago I was at my parents' house for dinner, entertaining my brother in law and my sister and their two adorable moppets-- no tongue in cheek there, of course, I am Uncle Jim above almost all else-- and I happened on my sister and my mother, talking about writing. My mother had a first novel published a few years back, is working on another one; my sister works in the industry, in New York. They didn't include me in the conversation, probably because I was just passing through, possibly because I'm not in their club because I haven't been published. They were agreeing on the notion that, when they're doing their best stuff, they have no idea what they're doing.

Hell. I could have told them that ten years ago. (Now that's sour graping.)

But they were right, of course. It's why Yeats, among others, was daffy enough to think he believed in spiritus mundi and automatic writing. It's also why anyone who ever gets a taste of the real stuff will brag on it. It's also why millions of people pretend to get it when they really don't get it, and why millions of people will embrace a pale, extruded, flimsy shadow of the real thing because, at the very least, it reminds them of what that last taste of the coulds was like. It's why Plato had it all wrong. It's like flying.

I know what I mean by all that, but I can't be bothered to explain right now.

Doc Nagel's latest take on this terrifically foolish endevour is in, and he accuses me, along with spelling "a lot" "alot," which to him is like fingernails on slate, of building up to no end. That is to say, he thinks my poetics to be akin to a shaggy dog story, and unless I have a real neck-whacking punchline in store, I will have wasted everybody's time. As if he hasn't read my poetry...

Take that, Doc Nagel! Take that any way you want, the rest of you...

Which is all to say: the Doc has it wrong this time. In the same way that the people at The Onion have it wrong when they begin their review of the latest blockbuster flick 2 Fast, 2 Furious, which has opened to blockbuster receipts for the same reason that teenagers who barely speak English are addicted to text messaging, with this:

"The most shameful of all B-movie pleasures, the derby subgenre thrives on crude physicality and mortal danger, preying on a drive-in audience that knows that the cars they're necking in could just as easily wind up a pile of twisted metal. Because speed kills, every souped-up feature is an invitation to disaster, a reminder that even the slickest machines are still tin cans on wheels."

You see, no. Audiences do not have a fascination with the possibility that their cars might kill them. FILM MAKERS LIKE CRASHING CARS. Think of it this way: the makers of "The Blues Brothers" bragged, in advance of the film's premier, that they had destroyed eleventy-twelve gazillion dollars worth of cars in order to make the film, and, sure, the phalanx of cop cars pursuing Our Heroes into Chicago at the end of the flick was impressive, but, really, what was everybody talking about the next day?

The mall scene.

Not because people like to see malls demolished. Although, there have been days... And then there was the guy who kept some of us, those in the know, in stitches for months simply by pointing a finger at us and inquiring "Orange whip? Orange whip?"

Because it was FUNNY. Because it was a hoot to hear Dan Akroyd, in the midst of this mayhem, intone "This place has everything." Because virtually anything was funny coming out of John Candy's mouth. But the sheer, cold, hard, shining fact of the matter is that the vast majority of film makers don't give a rotten rat's ass about whether the audience thinks their film is funny-- or sharp or poignant or scary or heartbreaking-- as much as they'd give their left nut, or anybody else's, for the right actress and the perfect script and they right studio backing and the absence of that prick producer who cut the guts out of the budget on his last picture or, far more to the point, the opportunity to complain about not having any one of these key elements. In short, film makers want POWER. And money. Lots and lots of money. And a chance to tell that prick Speilberg to get bent.

Punchline? I got yer punchline right here, Doc. If this is a shaggy dog story, then my poems are just tin cans on wheels. Nah. I ain't copping to that. Jesus built my hot rod.

I have now committed yet another sin: my examples above, from "The Blues Brothers," are far too single and explicit; anyone who hasn't seen the film in it's entirety will be lost to the references. And virtually NO ONE will get the reference-- Jesus Built My Hot Rod-- to a speed metal band whose name even I have forgotten. I have failed to achieve the Universal.

Ah, well.

(Take THAT, Doc!)

PORTED & RELIEVED, STROKED & BORED

The guys at The Onion-- specifically, Scott Tobias, whose name is ironic enough without my help-- are just filling my cup this morning:

"When a late-night street challenge in Miami gets him arrested, Walker and his estranged friend Tyrese are recruited for an ongoing police operation to catch generic thug Cole Hauser, a local druglord who's looking for drivers to pull off a money drop. With another customs agent (Eva Mendes) already deep undercover�and perhaps compromised�the low-wattage buddies successfully infiltrate Hauser's inner circle and accept his lucrative offer to drive trunkloads of cash down to the Florida Keys. It's best not to consider this plan too closely, but the grueling downtime between car chases makes it irresistible: Isn't there a less conspicuous way to move drug money than having two brightly colored sports cars barrel down Route 1 at 120 mph? If all traffickers were this stupid, the War On Drugs would be over."

Scott either doesn't know, or has forgotten, that that is how that majority of drugs are hauled, and the war on drugs isn't over because it's being fought by dumbasses who will lose all their departmental funding if the war ever gets won. He might have pointed out that the drug-haulers are going the wrong way. Next sentence:

"A long way from his 1991 Boyz 'N The Hood, director John Singleton has become the sort of exploitative hack that would have rankled that film's preachy father-figure, trading his soul for some low-angle booty."

In the first place, "Boyz in the Hood" was a crappy cliche-fest that preyed on white middle-class sensibilities and white guilt and was only laudable for the fact that Ice Cube's character poured beer on the crub and died in the closing titles. That he's directing schlock kar krash flicks doesn't suprise me in the least. He was a bad poet then, he's a bad poet now. Oh, horrors. Long live the King; the King is dead. I've seen the young black me who start lifting their 40's at ten in the morning, and none of them were in Singleton's first flick. He didn't care. He had the perfect script. If he could just get that prick producer off his back...

I just amended the title to this thankless tank of twadle as yet another dig at Doc Nagel. (Not that I'm being mean to him. He loves this stuff. Aardvark, Doc!) The good Doc mentions in his latest blog that he isn't buying Hillary Clinton's latest effort, It Takes A Publicist. With valid enough reason mind you, and never mind that 90% percent of the people who do purchase the tome won't buy it, in one sense or another. But the Doc makes a point-- and remember, his training is in Philosophy, so he's at something of a disadvantage here-- that there are too many memoirs.

Now, that's a fine point to make, as far as it goes, but the Doc then makes the assertion that a memoir is nothing but a dressed-up spin vehicle, a way to score political points while pretending to tell a personal tale. Now, doubtless, that is the tenor of many, if not most, memoirs, but the point here is both literal and germaine to the subject at hand: a memoir is a recollection of things as they may have seemed from a singular point of view. Histories are supposed to take all sources, or as many sources as possible, into account. What I have going here, in fits and starts, is something of a memoir, or at least it's memoir-esque; Doc Nagel's own blogging is something of a memoir (that's how long I've known him: I can spell his name without looking twice, AND I can insult him with near impugnity.) But, rather than call the Hillary thing a memoir and impugn (I like that word) the form, let's call spades spades and get it done with:

A Memoir: Personal recollections of a referenced point in time, sequence of historical events, etc., as recalled by the author.

Book by Hillary Clinton: A packa damn lies.

Bear in mind that I am a political indepenent, that I think the whole impeachment thing was a load of GOP hooey, and that I think Ken Starr knew what he was doing all along. So, please, Pat Buchanan: don't think this means I want to talk.

PROOF POSITIVE THAT I'VE LOST ALL TRACK OF AND INTEREST IN WHERE I PLACE THESE SILLY ALL-CAPS CHAPTER HEADING THAT MAKE THIS LOOK MORE LIKE A SCRIPT FOR AN EPISODE OF "FRASIER" THAN ANY KIND OF SERIOUS LITERARY-TYPE REAL WRITING-WRITING, AND MAYBE THAT'S NOT SUCH A BAD THING AFTER ALL

Here's the thing: I'm still trying. About a year ago, after quitting my day job (because I could and because I wanted to, not because I had to sacrifice for my art) I went through a frightening period of periodic panic, paranoia, writer's block, which does too exist, no matter what my mother says, and premature rejection. (The last is to say that I was not sending stuff off to contests or magazines or anything because I was convinced that I didn't have a hope in hell.) But even then, I kept trying. About a year previous I had gone through a similar cycle, in which I lost a few contests. The year before I got my stuff together and submitted for the Walt Whitman Prize, a prestigious award sponsered by the American Academy of Poetry. I was pretty proud of the submission, although in retrospect I was making choices based on far subtler distinctions than anybody reading and judging a thousand or so book-length poetry submissions would ever make. I even went so far as to not submit either of the poems I wrote after 9/11, on the off chance that their inclusion might seem like crass pandering. When they announced the winner, most of a year later, my wife remarked that I probably didn't have a chance to begin with. The chick who won was a fellow somewhere with an MFA, had won lottsa contests, been published in the quarterlies, all this stuff I hadn't done. Not that there are pre-reqs for the contest, technically there are not. Just to say that I probably came in under their radar.

Sue Kwock Kim? Yeah, I saw her last piece in Plowshares. Put her in Tony's stack to read. Jim Williams? Who the hell is Jim Williams? Toss him in that stack there, we'll get to that stack next month.

Just went over to the Academy page to learn the 2003 winner, turns out to be a guys named Tony Tost. He has an MFA, several publications in several quarterlies, and serious identity issues. I read the selection of his stuff from the quarterlies and... Yeah; okay. No comment. Not my kind of stuff, the style I find a little bland, but he's capable of being funny, so that's a big plus. Kudos, Tony, though we may never meet.

Which brings us full circle. It's not therapy, I'm not saving the world. Maybe I'm reaching for that big T truth, like we used to say in college, for that thing that will Explain It All, although I know in my heart of hearts that it's not there. (God set it up that way; He's very fond of games and tricks, He is.) Ironically, it's all a little hard to explain. But when someone gets it, I mean really gets it, down to the rhythm and the line breaks and the puns and the ironic little twists, as well as the deeper meaning I was after... Man, I mean, there's just nothing like it.

So that's it. Maybe it's not exactly a poetics. But then, really, what is?

(How's THAT for a punchline, Doc?)

End of blog.

THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY, THE UBIQUITY OF TACO BELL

Now wait just a flingin-flangin minute here. I'm leaving something out, something that comes to mind because of a recent trip out west to visit Doc Nagel and company (wife, 6 cats, and their pals Jen and Andy, who are rolled gold souls indeed). Let's start with this: the What It's About entry for Big Sur Poem, updated to partially reflect the experience:

"Back in 1998 I made a pilgrimage out to California to see my pal Doc Nagel. He and his wife, Kim Northcutt, had moved out to Modesto, CA, not too terribly long before, and they were (as they are, anyplace they go) in the process of exploring the place and finding its sweet spots. Big Sur, they had determined, was one of them.

"This poem traces our travel from Modesto down the Central Valley, across towards the Coast through Salinas (at my insistance, ironically), stopping for lunch at Rosita's Armory Grill (which, we discovered, is the only good reason anyone should ever stop in Salinas), and on into Big Sur. About the time we were entering Big Sur proper (it's a wide and fuzzy line, in my opinion) Chris made the statement quoted atop the bit.

"Well, we sat in the sand, watched the sunset, took a bunch of pictures, split a bottle of pretty good wine, and just kind of took it all in. Later we tramped back to the car and headed back towards Modesto, looking the whole time for someplace inviting to stop for food, finally settling on, ironically and terrifyingly enough, Taco Bell. We piled back into the car and plowed on into the night, Kim trying, the whole time, to con us into heading towards San Fransisco, where we could drink 'til closing time and then sleep in the car. (Kim is always full of good ideas.)

"We got back to Modesto after midnight, all of us wired from the road, and the seeds of this poem were sown on their PC out of fatigue and whiskey and a belly full of bad road food. I added to it over the next couple of days, and, by the time I left California, I had acheived the single most important element of the poem, the last line: "And so to Hell with your question." Later, back in Charlotte, I mucked about with it, and eventually got it to the shape you see here, which, God as my witness, is the finished form (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

"This is the first of my poems that Chris referred to as an "existential travelogue," and that, essentially, is what it is. It's about the persistance of memory, about the aesthetic sense of California, and about the absurdity of Big Sur. (When I speak of "half-mended bridges," I mean it; all the bridges on the road to Big Sur were under construction; there was only one passable lane on each bridge, and the traffic was regulated by traffic lights that let northbound traffic pass for a while, then southbound. The "assylum," "Rancho Del Sur," is actually El Sur Ranch, the only remaining private property in Big Sur, and it is contained within the largest circuit of ugly chain link fencing in the world.) All the literary references, save those to Steinbeck in Salinas, are just brain candy.

"Update: I made a visit to Doc Nagel & wife, June-July, 2003, and of course we had to go to Big Sur. The bridges are fixed; the fences around El Sur Ranch are gone, or at least removed from visibility from the road. The place still attracts flocks of tourists, who come and ooh and ahh over the place before sinking back into self-involved conversation while their kids run about tearing up whatever nature they can get their hands around or poke a stick at. This season brought off-shore fog, which filled the coastline below the cliffs and hung off-shore at the beach, giving the hills the effect of back-lighting and making the place all that much more inspiring and surreal. Doc mentioned seeing a picture of Hunter Thompson at Big Sur, snapped by some famous photographer or other, seated at his Royal manual. I imagine him staring out at the sea. My bet is Doc Gonzo was stymied by the place."

So, I guess you're asking "What in the living, breathing Hell has THAT got to do with ANYTHING?" Hang on; it gets better.

After dropping in at Salinas, where again we ate at Rosita's Fine Spirits Armory Bar & Grill (Kim insisted that I use the name as nominated on the sign outside the restaurant) where we were served by the same waitress as we had five years ago, a stunning visit to Big Sur, and a slog up the coast, we arrived at Jen and Andy's shotgun shack in Santa Cruz, where we proceeded to have the damn finest meal there ever was (wild salmon in a tremendously nifty cream sauce the Doc whipped up, saffron rice, & bok choy). After this we played a stupid dice game they had all played in Mexico earlier in the year, drank way too much whiskey and beer, except for kim, who drank way, way, way too much vodka and cranberry juice. At something aout 11 that night, Jen and Andy followed me out to the beck on the cliff over the beach, where we talked and listened to the ocean and stared at the stars, while the Doc, natch, doctored his wife.

The next morning I was the first one up. I pulled on my togs and snuck out just as I heard Andy stirring. I trotted up the road, about three blocks inland, and found a coffe shop. I bought coffee for the house, on the grounds (ha ha) that it would just make everyone's life easier, and got back to the apartment about the time everybody had roused. (Everybody but Kim, who remained under the weather for the rest of the day. Damned cranberry juice!) We walked the beach, walked the boardwalk, observed the tourists, had brunch a fantastic restaurant, walked the wharf, watched sea lions frolic in the surf, all the time sharing a running dialogue that was half observation and half comedy routine. (Jen and Andy are funny folks.) About halfway through the afternoon, I began remarking that my memory was full and I was going to have to start deleting some files. This small gag no one else in the company found terribly amusing except, of course, for the author.

But it was very true: I was having one hell of a good time, and I was actually beginning to forget parts of it as it went on and on and on.

I have managed, I think, to hang on to most of it, and there are parts that I kind of willfully re-constructed with Doc Nagel's unbiden and unwitting assistance, and I also bolstered the memories by telling my wife all about the trip and it's many manifestations. (This explanation for why I insisted on telling her about every little detail may or may not excuse me from having tethered her to the phone for the better part of a half hour each evening.)

Here's the thing: I've always had a keen memory. It's part of who I am. I have never-- or almost never-- had to take notes, either for classes or to remember conversations, with the exception of interviews held while I was a reporter, which tended to be largely forgettable. Now I'm not saying that I never make grocery lists, because of course I do, and I will forget things if I go shopping wihtout a list. But think part of the reason I write is to hone and sharpen my memories, to expand them, and to share them. Over the last five years or so, I think, I've written more largely about my experiences and their meanings, and not just their meanings to me but the larger, more universal things I take away. And it's not just the meanings. Here's a shocker: I'm a moralist. No matter how I tap dance around the issue, no matter how I couch it or cloak it or color it or spin it, the fact remains. What I try to share is wisdom or a sort, or perhaps a better word is understanding. I try to find what might be, could be, a shared epiphany, a kernel of truth about our world, our society, this Rorshack test we call America. The Doc was right: Existential travellogues. I guess that's probably, mainly what I'm after. To share a taste of the good stuff.

I was in the process of doing this recently with my nephews Joe and Kyle. I took them out to lunch on the fourth of July weekend, to a place called The Azteca, which serves, in my opinion, the best Mexican food in Charlotte. I'm a big fan of Mexican, especially a good chile relleno or an enchilada. Both Joe and Kyle said they had had and liked Mexican, but on examining the menu, which might have well been in Greek for all they knew, they suddenly found themselves pilgrims in a strange, strange land. Kyle played it safe by ordering a chicken salad, which turned out to be fajita-style chicken on a bed of greens. Joe went slightly further afield and ordered a fajita quesadilla, which is essentially carne asada with peppers and onions stuffed with queso inside a flour tortilla. He picked at it for the time it took me to devour a relleno and a half a plateful of refritos & rice. Joe put his own personal spin on the misadventure by noting that when he thought Mexican, he thought Taco Bell, a common American illusion. I put a good face on the adventure by maintaining that I got my relleno, which really is what I was after. But I have to admit that a part of me is very dissapointed: I had failed. I had been a bad poet. I had not lead my dear young lads to the good stuff. It's bound to happen. Sometimes your audience digs it, sometimes they don't. And just like hustling, there's only one way to play: ante up and deal the cards.

At this juncture it occurs to me that part of why I am having a little trouble breaking into the getting-published-biz is that my view of poetics differs from the view seemingly held by most poetry editors: I want to turn my audience on, thrill them if I can, maybe come up with that kernel of truth or inspiration that makes my spine tingle or takes my breath away and pass that along. Gauging by what seems to be ending up in the poetry journals I've seen lately, a poem should be mean, should demean, and should appear to be doing so to author and audience alike. As anyone who knows me at all knows, that ain't what Uncle Jim is all about, not by a whit nor a longshot. I caught a bit of one of Su Kwock Kim's bits on NPR's Weakened Edition one Sunday, while tooling around looking for somewhere to buy a paintbrush. I had to turn it off. The first lines were, I thought, boring as hell, and I was in a pretty good mood and didn't want to spoil it. I know my stuff is good, I've had enough feedback from other readers to know I'm right about that, but it looks for all the world like my career will never take off, simply because I haven't kissed the right asses. I finally got my first issue of Poetry magazine; it's pretty much what I expected, Poetry poetry, formalistic and stodgy and full of classical references and mythological allusions. Grim. Not a celebration in the bunch. So why do I bother? Maybe I should quit.

Back to the subject of food. (Hey, it worked for Hemingway.) My pal, Doc Nagel, is a demon in the kitchen, an absolute maniac. As noted in his blog following my latest visit out there, one of the main things we do when we get together is consume, and I mean that in an all-embracing sort of way. We consume landscape the same way we consume food. There's even something sort of consumptive about the way we exchange gags-- and, trust me, regardless of how glum I might seem here, the Doc and I are very, VERY funny together. As a result of our collective conspicuous consumption, when we get together, whether here or there, Chris cooks. And when I say Chris cooks, I mean like a madman, like a man possessed, like a genius.

As we get older, as we pass through our adulthoods, we accumulate things. My wife likes Oriental stuff, particularly Buddha statuettes. I have four guitars: two 12 strings, a classical and an electric. Chris has accumulated kitchen stuff, including a revolving collection of knives which he is close to perfecting. On my latest visit out there, we made a pilgrimage-- and trust me, I do think of it this way-- to Big Sur, as described above. In preparation for the final approach, the visit to Jen & Andy, he put together a kit-- pots, pans, knives-- in preparation for the meal preparation, which was more than a foregone conclusion, more like a manifest destiny. When we got there, the kit in the car came together with the ingredients that presented themselves; Chris picked each element after careful consideration, and what finally came together out of the mix was terrific, amazing, delicious.

I can't cook like that. I mean, I do cook, but I tend to stick to simpler stuff. I trifled with Oriental cooking for a while, but nothing really came out the way I wanted. I am currently fiddling Mexican food, which is working out better because most of the stuff required is available either prepped or pre-mixed. I buy premium ground sirloin and grill a rare hamburger, dressed modestly with ketchup and dijon mustard and finely chopped onion. Which is all to say that I still eat well, despite my limited capabilities. But I am very aware that I can't cook like the Doc. And I think I appreciate it that much more because I am aware of it.

And that's why I appreciate poetry, and other poets' work. I read Robert Lowell because he has a sense of despair that I can't quite capture. I read Denise Levertov for the wit. I read Bukowski . . . GOD knows why I read Bukowski. I still read Ferlinghetti, for the joy of it and for the hell of it. I don't read Sylvia Plath anymore, mainly because I find most of her stuff artless and self-indulgent, but I will readily admit I owe her a huge debt. I stuck around the poerty slam circuit for two solid years because for every dozen-or-so self-involved shitheads who didn't have a damned thing to say there was at least one magnificent bastard who could spin the universe into a paper cup with a half-dozen dazzling strokes. It's also part of why I consider myself a poet: what my eye sees, what I am capable of feeling and appreciating and understanding, and my ability to conjur the words and put them down and sculpt the form for shape and for heft and for speed and for impact. And I read other poets, and I appreciate other poets, for the things they do that I don't. For me, it's really all about love, and I think it should be.

Now THAT's what I call poetics.