Yesterday I began to write a long dissertation-worthy (and perhaps every bit as yawn-inducing) paragraph about the three books I finished over the weekend. (I am, tragically or miraculously, a serial multi-tasker).
The friend who sent me the quote I posted a while ago had actually never read the book from which it originated. Coincidentally, this book was in my long queue of books to read, and I moved it up. This was one of the books I read last week. I finished it in two sittings, and felt at once this terrible sadness that it was over, and this wonderful luckiness that I had the pleasure of reading it.
The book is not perfect. It's impossibly romantic, in a way that's downright unbelievable. The vocabulary that the teenagers use in the book is awe-strikingly advanced, and the wit sharper than I've ever known wit to be.
I feel akin to those kinds of stories, because I am a very flawed human being, and I've retained an almost pathetic romanticism that weighs me down with constantly unfulfilled expectations as I trod through relationship after relationship. My long-ago studies of SAT words have left me with an insatiable love for looking up words I don't know the meaning of, and I fall to pieces over the kind of rare sophisticated wit that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Anyway. Some quotes:
"... and then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness."
"It occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again."
"And of course, if you ever do decide to write anything else, even if you don't want to publish it, I'd love to read it. Frankly, I'd read your grocery lists."
"But of course there is always a hamartia."
"Pain demands to be felt.:"
"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things."
"Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you."
All quotes from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Planets
What gravity is this
or, what matter are you
that I find myself drawn to your center,
yes, down to my very core?
When they failed to define us as planets any longer,
the loneliness hung between us
but not shared at first, it was just
there -
and facing our separate worlds abandoned,
we cling to each other
afraid at once that
this orbit will last forever
and yet also that it will end
we trace the patterns in our wary heartbeat
(more like constellations than just a lone star,)
we allow the void to empty into our palms
(more like stillness than just dark,)
until your breath becomes my universe
and my quiet becomes your song
the loneliness hung between us
but not shared at first, it was just
there -
and facing our separate worlds abandoned,
we cling to each other
afraid at once that
this orbit will last forever
and yet also that it will end
we trace the patterns in our wary heartbeat
(more like constellations than just a lone star,)
we allow the void to empty into our palms
(more like stillness than just dark,)
until your breath becomes my universe
and my quiet becomes your song
Two more tango poems by L. Kwan (He's cranking them out).
First Tango Lesson
In the beginning. Not feet.
But small children who were raised in the forest, vying to be in front of the other, their earnest display of welcome.
I remember long ago playing with them in the forest.
When I saw the men with guns coming and I abandoned them.
"Hello again. My name is."
My language tossed aside.
Only interest and wonder at such difference or indifference on our parts, eyes taking in what I might call "countenance."
In other words
How to communicate my hunger
Now that I too was in their forest. How to survive with grubs and berries, roots dug up and acorns ground into gruel.
How naked I became.
Not even a rag to cover my loins before them.
Hair matted to their foreheads, dirt on the brow and chin, their tongues tasting every green thing and remembering the scent on their upper lips.
Such wildness of feeling I had lost
Not innocence
They were still children after all
Human like me.
One a boy. The other a girl. Teaching something simple but necessary to share. They stood there and took turns holding me.
The word for shelter.
Endeavour
Between nights of tango, the day fills itself
with space shuttles perched on jumbo jets,
a reminder that even our loftiest efforts must end.
At the office, we rush onto the roof, gravel and tar
pungent and crunching beneath our shoes.
The wind splits our collars and this close to the edge
First Tango Lesson
In the beginning. Not feet.
But small children who were raised in the forest, vying to be in front of the other, their earnest display of welcome.
I remember long ago playing with them in the forest.
When I saw the men with guns coming and I abandoned them.
"Hello again. My name is."
My language tossed aside.
Only interest and wonder at such difference or indifference on our parts, eyes taking in what I might call "countenance."
In other words
How to communicate my hunger
Now that I too was in their forest. How to survive with grubs and berries, roots dug up and acorns ground into gruel.
How naked I became.
Not even a rag to cover my loins before them.
Hair matted to their foreheads, dirt on the brow and chin, their tongues tasting every green thing and remembering the scent on their upper lips.
Such wildness of feeling I had lost
Not innocence
They were still children after all
Human like me.
One a boy. The other a girl. Teaching something simple but necessary to share. They stood there and took turns holding me.
The word for shelter.
---
Endeavour
Between nights of tango, the day fills itself
with space shuttles perched on jumbo jets,
a reminder that even our loftiest efforts must end.
At the office, we rush onto the roof, gravel and tar
pungent and crunching beneath our shoes.
The wind splits our collars and this close to the edge
our feet pinch the deck like rail birds as our chatter mocks
the street-stuck gawkers ten stories below us. I get woozy
with imagining gravity and breaking it, like water rising
to the chest, carried into salty seas, or a sudden womb
enveloping my grown body, how being held and holding you
feels simultaneous, what the interior of a circle must be.
Our CEO shouts and points at a large seagull, again
at a plastic bag, jellyfish puffing through the rare air,
everything not quite what we want to see,
but no one’s cynical this high up, and we’re all in love
with what we might see and dizzy ourselves,
each second another door into the possible,
the delay of gratification more satisfying
than the thing itself, ceremoniously lumbering
its space-weary cargo across downtown’s rake of buildings
where you illuminate my darkest corners, throw flares
into the unknown. Curiosity can fling a man
from an entire planet, this much I know. We risk love
everyday. Tonight, I’ll step into your space and feel the clean
coldness of you, weightless in your vastness
where our most precise experiments can be tested.
And though you may refuse my theories, I know
my body warms you, as any body in heaven would.
the street-stuck gawkers ten stories below us. I get woozy
with imagining gravity and breaking it, like water rising
to the chest, carried into salty seas, or a sudden womb
enveloping my grown body, how being held and holding you
feels simultaneous, what the interior of a circle must be.
Our CEO shouts and points at a large seagull, again
at a plastic bag, jellyfish puffing through the rare air,
everything not quite what we want to see,
but no one’s cynical this high up, and we’re all in love
with what we might see and dizzy ourselves,
each second another door into the possible,
the delay of gratification more satisfying
than the thing itself, ceremoniously lumbering
its space-weary cargo across downtown’s rake of buildings
where you illuminate my darkest corners, throw flares
into the unknown. Curiosity can fling a man
from an entire planet, this much I know. We risk love
everyday. Tonight, I’ll step into your space and feel the clean
coldness of you, weightless in your vastness
where our most precise experiments can be tested.
And though you may refuse my theories, I know
my body warms you, as any body in heaven would.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
I sit next to MB's office. He's a Steel City old-timer, been here all his life working in the oil and gas industry. He's worked in the field all his life, wears jeans to the office every day ("because no one has told me I can't").
When cookies or candy or other sweets are involved, I compete readily with him. I can down 6 cookies in the blink of an eye. Yesterday he stopped by to chat, and we started talking about Reese's peanut butter cups. He said he can eat an entire bag of the Reese's pieces, and I said I would too except for my wariness about my waistline. He stared at me for a full 30 seconds in disbelief and told me that I am the size of a stick. I never deny that I'm in decent shape, but I know that my metabolism isn't that of my 16 year old self, either. But MB asked me why all women are worried about this stuff. I conjured up what I usually say, some mish-mash about the media, and magazines, and models.
He said, "let me tell you something. When I look at a Monet painting, I think, that's really beautiful. I think, I could look at this for a long time and think it's beautiful, but inevitably, when I see the same thing every day, and the same type of painting at every turn, even the paintings that everyone consider extraordinary are going to get ordinary. So I don't think people should be so concerned about their paintings looking like a Monet painting. Maybe they should just make their paintings look like their own painting."
And that was the mind blowing wisdom I received yesterday from a guy who works out in the field.
When cookies or candy or other sweets are involved, I compete readily with him. I can down 6 cookies in the blink of an eye. Yesterday he stopped by to chat, and we started talking about Reese's peanut butter cups. He said he can eat an entire bag of the Reese's pieces, and I said I would too except for my wariness about my waistline. He stared at me for a full 30 seconds in disbelief and told me that I am the size of a stick. I never deny that I'm in decent shape, but I know that my metabolism isn't that of my 16 year old self, either. But MB asked me why all women are worried about this stuff. I conjured up what I usually say, some mish-mash about the media, and magazines, and models.
He said, "let me tell you something. When I look at a Monet painting, I think, that's really beautiful. I think, I could look at this for a long time and think it's beautiful, but inevitably, when I see the same thing every day, and the same type of painting at every turn, even the paintings that everyone consider extraordinary are going to get ordinary. So I don't think people should be so concerned about their paintings looking like a Monet painting. Maybe they should just make their paintings look like their own painting."
And that was the mind blowing wisdom I received yesterday from a guy who works out in the field.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
rainy morning.
Becoming Weather, 21 | ||
| by Chris Martin | ||
I was out interviewing clouds amassing the notes of a sky pornographer while patches of the city subnormalized by fear of fear like a reef bleaching closed I took to the streets looking for a human velocity feeling disequilibrium heavy in the abundance of summer light the silent apathy of stars which is neither silent nor apathetic I am becoming weather and I don't plan on doing it alone | ||
Monday, September 17, 2012
Last week, instead of walking to dinner, I walked to a bookstore. And I spent my dinner money on books.
These days I feel torn when I see books I want, because I now own a Kindle to make my travel reading easier. But poetry, poetry I always buy in book form. I like to scan the poetry section and find all the tiny volumes hidden among the overwhelming anthologies of the more famous, classical poets. I don't pretend to know anything about poetry. I haven't studied literature, and I haven't learned how to analyze writing. Sometimes these tiny, simple volumes take me by surprise as I flip through them. Usually it's certain words, or the simplicity of the typography, or the modesty of the cover. Shyly, and perhaps predictably, I admit that I love to read about love.
I plucked Eliza Griswold's Wideawake Field from the shelf. I thumbed through the pages. I secretly confess that I took photos of the poems I liked, until I realized I was photographing every page. While the language is simple, I believe this is precisely what stopped me in my tracks. Her conciseness allows her poetry to transcend the usually complex language that is required to describe such heavy human emotion, such as loneliness, not taking things for granted, and, of course, love.
Well. Of course, I took this as my meal, and my heart felt full.
---
The synopsis:
The title poem trails at the end of the book:
---
The lone review on Amazon reads:
"As someone who has spent a great deal of my life overseas, and particularly in areas of conflict, it felt like Eliza had accompanied me for much of it. Yet I think her work moves beyond the specific and touches on the universal struggling to be - and because we are - only human."
B.
---
from Work in Progress, previously unpublished poetry by Eliza Griswold. These poems are longer, and more specific to her work as a reporter.
These days I feel torn when I see books I want, because I now own a Kindle to make my travel reading easier. But poetry, poetry I always buy in book form. I like to scan the poetry section and find all the tiny volumes hidden among the overwhelming anthologies of the more famous, classical poets. I don't pretend to know anything about poetry. I haven't studied literature, and I haven't learned how to analyze writing. Sometimes these tiny, simple volumes take me by surprise as I flip through them. Usually it's certain words, or the simplicity of the typography, or the modesty of the cover. Shyly, and perhaps predictably, I admit that I love to read about love.
I plucked Eliza Griswold's Wideawake Field from the shelf. I thumbed through the pages. I secretly confess that I took photos of the poems I liked, until I realized I was photographing every page. While the language is simple, I believe this is precisely what stopped me in my tracks. Her conciseness allows her poetry to transcend the usually complex language that is required to describe such heavy human emotion, such as loneliness, not taking things for granted, and, of course, love.
Well. Of course, I took this as my meal, and my heart felt full.
---
The synopsis:
The chairs have come in
and the crisp yellow thwock
of the ball being hit
says somehow, now that it's fall,
I'm a memory of myself.
My whole old life--
I mourn you sometimes
in places you would have been.
--October
The poems in this fierce debut are an attempt to record what matters. As a reporter's dispatches, they concern themselves with different forms of desolation: what it means to feel at home in wrecked places and then to experience loneliness and dislocation in the familiar. The collection arcs between internal and external worlds--the disappointment of returning, the guilt and thrill of departure, unexpected encounters in blighted places-- and, with ruthless observations etched in the sparest lines, the poems in Wideawake Field sharply and movingly navigate the poles of home and away.
The title poem trails at the end of the book:
I’ve never been where we are,
although the glass studded
with soldier’s rusted buttons
says we aren’t the first.
The airstrip’s islands of cracked macadam
suggest an ancient volcano.
We are the volcano.
although the glass studded
with soldier’s rusted buttons
says we aren’t the first.
The airstrip’s islands of cracked macadam
suggest an ancient volcano.
We are the volcano.
We, the notes sung
by a creator, who, if not singular,
is creation—
not an idea, a force.
Let us tumble.
Let us laugh at our grip.
If these are last days,
let them not catch us sleeping
but awake in this field, and ready.
by a creator, who, if not singular,
is creation—
not an idea, a force.
Let us tumble.
Let us laugh at our grip.
If these are last days,
let them not catch us sleeping
but awake in this field, and ready.
---
The lone review on Amazon reads:
"As someone who has spent a great deal of my life overseas, and particularly in areas of conflict, it felt like Eliza had accompanied me for much of it. Yet I think her work moves beyond the specific and touches on the universal struggling to be - and because we are - only human."
B.
---
from Work in Progress, previously unpublished poetry by Eliza Griswold. These poems are longer, and more specific to her work as a reporter.
Metamorphosis
The mimosa trees misunderstand
the New Year’s heat, and burst
into mustard tufts across the garden—
their premature buds a birth
forced by the earth’s unnaturalness.
Poor trees, like nine-year-old girls
who have to negotiate breasts. It’s death
pressing up under the most tender flesh.
In this age, most of us feared ours
were tumors, and we were in season.
the New Year’s heat, and burst
into mustard tufts across the garden—
their premature buds a birth
forced by the earth’s unnaturalness.
Poor trees, like nine-year-old girls
who have to negotiate breasts. It’s death
pressing up under the most tender flesh.
In this age, most of us feared ours
were tumors, and we were in season.
Long ago, a girl could become a tree.
Daphne’s fingers sprouted twigs;
root hairs branched from her toes;
her torqued curls gnarled into limbs.
She thickened, as we do, in self-defense.
Daphne’s fingers sprouted twigs;
root hairs branched from her toes;
her torqued curls gnarled into limbs.
She thickened, as we do, in self-defense.
Libyan Proverbs
The naked man in the caravan has peace of mind.
He who has luck will have the winds blow him his firewood.
He whose trousers are made of dry grass should not warm himself at the fire.
He howled before going mad, and led a lion by the ear.
Like the sparrow, he wanted to imitate the pigeon’s walk but lost his own.
Walk with sandals till you get good shoes. Where the turban moves,
there goes the territory. Him whom you do not see, see his companions.
Men meet but mountains don’t. Always taking, not giving back,
even mountains will be broken down.
Penny piled on penny will make a heap.
Fish eats fish and he who has no might dies.
The small donkey is the one everybody rides.
My belly before my children. Sons I have not got,
but I have a mess on my clothes. Only the unlucky coin
is left in the purse. As long as a human being lives
he will learn. Learn to shave by shaving orphans.
He who is to be hanged can insult the Pasha.
In the house of a man who has been hanged
do not talk of rope. Much shouting and crowds
over a hedgehog’s slaughter. The funeral
is big but the corpse is a mouse.
I lick my grindstone and sleep in peace.
He who has luck will have the winds blow him his firewood.
He whose trousers are made of dry grass should not warm himself at the fire.
He howled before going mad, and led a lion by the ear.
Like the sparrow, he wanted to imitate the pigeon’s walk but lost his own.
Walk with sandals till you get good shoes. Where the turban moves,
there goes the territory. Him whom you do not see, see his companions.
Men meet but mountains don’t. Always taking, not giving back,
even mountains will be broken down.
Penny piled on penny will make a heap.
Fish eats fish and he who has no might dies.
The small donkey is the one everybody rides.
My belly before my children. Sons I have not got,
but I have a mess on my clothes. Only the unlucky coin
is left in the purse. As long as a human being lives
he will learn. Learn to shave by shaving orphans.
He who is to be hanged can insult the Pasha.
In the house of a man who has been hanged
do not talk of rope. Much shouting and crowds
over a hedgehog’s slaughter. The funeral
is big but the corpse is a mouse.
I lick my grindstone and sleep in peace.
Sabaudia
The delicate Italian town
preserves its symbols—
its sheaves of wheat and axes
stamped onto manhole covers.
A balcony presses past a worker’s window
in the same crossed shape
of wheat bound by wheat.
Yet the white, weathered farmers
have fled utopia. This block is let
to gypsies and Africans.
The cash crop is kiwis.
All markets are black.
Without meaning to, I file
these facts to show you,
ambassador to a country
that no longer exists.
preserves its symbols—
its sheaves of wheat and axes
stamped onto manhole covers.
A balcony presses past a worker’s window
in the same crossed shape
of wheat bound by wheat.
Yet the white, weathered farmers
have fled utopia. This block is let
to gypsies and Africans.
The cash crop is kiwis.
All markets are black.
Without meaning to, I file
these facts to show you,
ambassador to a country
that no longer exists.
Listening to Enrique Rodriguez and absentmindedly watching Pablo y Noelia glide across the floor.
More poems below by L. Kwan.
Another’s
Another’s...another’s, you are in the arms of another
and here, I, powerless to stop you, watch
the one I can’t have with the one I can’t be, holding
each other, even through the goose cackles of cortinas.
Earlier we strode cleaving to Di Sarli, lost in the lush
hedgerows of his violins, and I had a better chance
than he does now, to step into you with a feather and hear
the sound of lightness as it bore our weight on a pause.
But I was afraid to share a tired line, how upon your descent
among our shadows, so many had already uttered,
‘a great weight fell into the well of my chest, and out poured desire.’
Silent, we parted respectfully, the vegetable scent leaving.
You felt what the music dictated, nothing more. So here,
take these lines I’ve roughened on the hot stones of my ribs.
Take them. They may be the only thing better
than the arms you are in, and the one thing that lasts longer.
More poems below by L. Kwan.
Another’s
Another’s...another’s, you are in the arms of another
and here, I, powerless to stop you, watch
the one I can’t have with the one I can’t be, holding
each other, even through the goose cackles of cortinas.
Earlier we strode cleaving to Di Sarli, lost in the lush
hedgerows of his violins, and I had a better chance
than he does now, to step into you with a feather and hear
the sound of lightness as it bore our weight on a pause.
But I was afraid to share a tired line, how upon your descent
among our shadows, so many had already uttered,
‘a great weight fell into the well of my chest, and out poured desire.’
Silent, we parted respectfully, the vegetable scent leaving.
You felt what the music dictated, nothing more. So here,
take these lines I’ve roughened on the hot stones of my ribs.
Take them. They may be the only thing better
than the arms you are in, and the one thing that lasts longer.
----
Arriving at the Cortina Again
I know how a tanda ends with nothing
I am at the end of love
Rather I am unsure how to go on
I imagine a train punctua
I know how a tanda ends with nothing
I am at the end of love
Rather I am unsure how to go on
I imagine a train punctua
ted by the caboose
Feels like no longer possessing
I see a woman on the rear platform
She looks to be waving a white handkerchief
Or her dress is billowing as the train keeps leaving
The caboose is getting pulled into a tunnel without exit
The tunnel reappears on the other side of earth
Or the tunnel has not yet been dug out
The crash for one would sound beautiful
Then beauty is a pile up with a woman at the end
Or maybe the tunnel keeps going, meaning down
There’s no picturing a train moving endlessly down
I imagine nothing is too dark to see ahead
She is looking backwards and going forward
It is this way when a woman feels like being swallowed
I let out a long loud O
A pleasure to do so in a tunnel
Even if the tunnel steadily descends to Hades
Who would decide on such a trip
Maybe she was never real
Her dress looks more like a flag on its pole
The flag is flown atop the tallest building
It flaps and flaps and keeps getting smaller
I remember that surrender of once loved
I break like a dish or I keep falling
Feels like no longer possessing
I see a woman on the rear platform
She looks to be waving a white handkerchief
Or her dress is billowing as the train keeps leaving
The caboose is getting pulled into a tunnel without exit
The tunnel reappears on the other side of earth
Or the tunnel has not yet been dug out
The crash for one would sound beautiful
Then beauty is a pile up with a woman at the end
Or maybe the tunnel keeps going, meaning down
There’s no picturing a train moving endlessly down
I imagine nothing is too dark to see ahead
She is looking backwards and going forward
It is this way when a woman feels like being swallowed
I let out a long loud O
A pleasure to do so in a tunnel
Even if the tunnel steadily descends to Hades
Who would decide on such a trip
Maybe she was never real
Her dress looks more like a flag on its pole
The flag is flown atop the tallest building
It flaps and flaps and keeps getting smaller
I remember that surrender of once loved
I break like a dish or I keep falling
Sunday, September 16, 2012
You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.
-Anais Nin in a letter to Leonard W.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
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