Opening the gate

Today is the birthday of poet 

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

This was the first sentence I read this morning. Algernon Charles Swinburne... did I know of him? I searched my brain for his poetry, for any idea of him that maybe stuck with me after all my college poetry classes. 

The Writer's Almanac tells me:
"He had wild red hair, drank to excess, and screamed his poetry and blasphemies aloud while wandering around Oxford at night. He wrote poems about sex, and sadomasochism and vampires, which shocked the Victorians and which nobody reads anymore."

I still couldn't place Algernon Charles Swinburne. More research tells me he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1909. 
As a young man, he was friends with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. 

Oh Algernon, you escape me. I still can't place you, but I know of your friends...

    
 I walked through the open gate to knowledge. I needed to know more about Algernon, the poet no one reads anymore.

I read on. Algernon was a "an alcoholic and algolagniac". 
He was a decadent poet. Decadent??? Decadent... a group of writers and poets who were influenced by Gothic novels and by Edgar Allen Poe. Oscar Wilde was labeled a Decadent writer. So was HG Wells. 

But Algernon gave us more. He gave us the 'roundel' style of poetry. Christina Rossetti wrote in roundel verse, thanks to Algernon. 

The gate to knowledge opened wider...

Roundel: verse in the rhyme scheme of 
"A B A R 
 B A B 
 A B A R "  
Which interprets to "A poetic form of 11 to 14 lines consisting of two rhymes and the repetition of the first two lines in the middle of the poem and at its end" (source: The Poetry Foundation).

I have more reading to do this morning.

I am fascinated by gates to knowledge. 
Where will yours lead today?

  


  
 

Building a house

"I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time."

 ... the house that built me ...

 My brother and I have our handprints in the cement on the back patio.
My mother marked our height/growth on the kitchen door sill. 
We had a huge banana tree in the backyard, and mom's clothesline was stretched across the lawn.

"I bet you didn’t know under that live oak

My favorite dog is buried in the yard..."

"If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me."

 (Last day at this house that built me)

I have those memories. 

Lyrics are from the song "The House that Built Me" written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin. 

Miranda Lambert recorded it, but I heard it first performed by Mary Hoffmann. 

 The street  with the house that built me.

The house is still there, all 1,150 sq. feet of it. 

Zillow records that it was valued at $650,000 in 2005. 

The house that built me... in Southern California.

Being an astonaut

My Father Holds the Door for Yoko Ono

In New York City for a conference

on weed control, leaving the hotel

in a cluster of horticulturalists,

he alone stops, midwestern, crewcut,

narrow blue tie, cufflinks, wingtips,

holds the door for the Asian woman

in a miniskirt and thigh high

white leather boots. She nods

slightly, a sad and beautiful gesture.. 

 

(- by Christopher Chambers , as profiled by

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate 2004-2006

American Life in Poetry: Column 88 )

 

Are you ever surprised how a poem can stick in your thoughts? Not in a sad wistful way, nor in a sing-song golightly way. But in a "what was that again?" questioning way. 

Just like brushing up against a famous person, a truly famous person... you can't quite grasp it again, but the poem sticks in your memories. My brother and I once ran into the John Glenn, the astronaut. I don't know if he was a senator yet or not - but he certainly was a famous astronaut. Illya and I had decided to spend a hot sticky afternoon riding the elevators in an upscale hotel. Up and down we rode, greeting people at each floor as they entered the spacious elevator. Illya would play 'conductor', pushing the floor buttons for everyone on board. I stood behind all the passengers, not noticable but noticing. It was delightful way to spend our time. Then John Glenn boarded. THE JOHN GLENN. Illya looked at me, I at him, our mouths gaping and weird noises coming out of our lips. I don't remember the rest... and I can't quite capture it again. 

Just like Dad holding the door for Yoko Ono - the moment is gone. Does it really need to be remembered? 

 

And thinking of astronauts... E. and I took Sophie the dog to a festival. Hundreds of people - and every kid asking to pet Sophie. Kids always ask "What is her name?". Their parents ask "What kind of dog is she?" We respond that she is a Gordon setter mix. "A what setter?" We are asked over and over. Gordon. Like in.... Like in Gordon Cooper, the astronaut!!! 

That answer doesn't work. "Oh, you mean like Jeffy Gordon?". Everyone knows Jeff Gordon, #24. Except me. I'm sticking to my astronauts.

The kid from Kansas

"... all at once, he is full of dread for the future and he's thinking, Oh no, what have I done?" (from Percival's Planet by Michael Byers, 2010, p. 353)

These imaginary thoughts are attributed to Clyde Tombaugh, the kid from Kansas. It is imagined he thought them in 1930 upon his discovery of the planet Pluto. Clyde, the kid from Kansas. The kid without a college degree, without a credit to his name. The kid who, in his spare time, built lenses and mirror he ground himself while helping on his family farm. The kid who impressed one person at Lowell Observatory with his fine work and was hired sight unseen. Clyde, of all employees at Lowell Observatory, found Pluto. This kid from Kansas is now full of dread  for the future (p. 353).

Widow Percival (Constance) Lowell did not like Clyde. Mrs. Lowell owned the purse-strings of Lowell Observatory, and only at her command did the Observatory search the skies. Only through her gratitude and monies did the observatory operate. Mrs. Lowell rarely made an appearance at the observatory, and when she did, everyone prepared for it. Mrs Lowell, in her widow costume of solid black (including the hat and veil) would demand the reports of her employees, question them on the search for Planet X, and then leave them with the fear of funding being cut or denied. She ridiculed Clyde Tombaugh, calling him 'Mr. Tom Tom'.

(permission to use this photo granted under GNU Free Documentation License)

And so night after night, Clyde was relegated to taking photographic plates of the skies or comparing his plates by using a blink comparator. And when Clyde matched his new image to one on a plate from a different night/era, he knew something was up. The closer he studied his images and compared his to others, the more assured he became. The more assured he became, the more he dreaded the future. Clyde was not supposed to be the one to find Lowell's Planet X. Clyde, this kid from Kansas.

I am captivated by Clyde Tombaugh. He found something that wasn't his. He lost something that wasn't his, too. When Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet, Clyde was already deceased. But Clyde's widow, Patricia Tombaugh, says Clyde would have understood. The science is there to back up Pluto's dwarfness. And Clyde would see that and accept the difference.
There is something about Clyde, this kid from Kansas. Clyde Tombaugh just wanted to search the skies; he just wanted to do his job. He didn't want to play the games with the egos, with Widow Lowell, or with fame. He just wanted to find 'things', whether planets or comets. He wanted to search the skies.

"What am I supposed to do," he whispers. No one else in the world alive has done what he has done. No one in the whole world he can ask for advice. (p. 403)
I'm only Clyde.

And what Clyde found is that there is always solace, somewhere. Tonight, look up into the skies. Look at the stars. The same stars that Clyde Tombaugh searched through 90 years ago. The same stars that Percival Lowell hunted through. And Galileo. And thousands of others, millions of others.

Solace. Clyde Tombaugh. And you.

The Consultants

U.S. Poet laureates were originally known as 'the Official Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress". It took an act of Congress in 1985 to change their official title to Poet Laureate. Imagine, Congress actually achieved something 'back then'. 

The first Official Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress was appointed in 1937.  Joseph Auslander had no official job description and no official term of office. But he was a poet, known for his poems on war and on the German occupation of Europe. Auslander served as the official consultant until 1941. 

 I immediately started organizing a spread sheet of poet laureates, sortable alphabetically,  by the year of their term in office, by their poetry style and by their noteworthy poems. I find it is good to be organized this way. 

Many of the PLOTUS (Poet Laureate of the United States - but is plural PLOTI?) are familiar names. William Carlos Williams. Robert Frost. James Dicky. Gwendolyn Brooks. Robert Penn Warren. Rita Dove. Many of the PLOTUS are not familiar names... too many to list here. 

But I have them listed on my spreadsheet. 

And I am working my way through the list, adding tidbits of information about each as I come across it. Sometimes I find a hint of the poet, the 'person', when reading a poem s/he wrote. Sometimes I find it in a press release about her/him. And sometimes a hint of it comes across in an interview.

Donald Hall. PLOTUS 2006-2207. The bits and pieces I knew about him could fill a thimble. Now I can fill a coffee mug. 

Donald Hall. At first glimpse of him, I thought he was C. Everett Koop's older cousin.

Donald Hall. His wife, Jane Kenyon (also a poet) was 19 years younger, a former student of his, and she died much too young. Hall himself has 'battled' cancer since 1989. But he keeps his sense of humor, his poetry skills strong. 

PLOTUS (PLOTI?) recently have defined their term with a mission statement. Robert Pinsky's term is known for his 'Favorite Poem Project'.  I was teaching high school at the time Pinsky started the Favorite Poem Project. Our Junior and Senior English classes were all caught up in the excitement of the project - each student searching poetry anthologies for the ONE poem that struck them, stuck to them, one that became their favorite. 

PLOTUS Ted Kooser (2004-2006) chose a poem a week for national newspapers to print. Joseph Brodsky encouraged poetry to be displayed/available in airports and hotel rooms. I note these on my PLOTUS spreadsheet.

Donald Hall hoped to encourage poetry reading on TV. PBS most likely. Hall is quoted as saying "People listen to it a good deal, the poetry reading is popular. I have lived long enough so that I have seen poetry increase enormously in audience. I know that it is not so many people as go to the dog tracks one night in Florida, probably."

Right now, Donald Hall is my favorite PLOTUS. He writes about his wife's death in a way that many of us know. The fear, the knowledge, the overwhelming sadness. I know he knows it. I know it, too. The early morning phone call to tell me my father had died. My hsuband's phone call when he found his own mother dead. The call about Peter's suicide.

"It was reasonable
to expect.”

"...There's nothing to do.”

(from Last Days by Donald Hall) 

 

But my PLOTUS spreadsheet has many blank spaces, many columns to be filled with poets, with new knowledge. 

I hope you take time to know a PLOTUS.  Just pick one and read.

Labels and such

Meet Philip Levine. 

He is a professor.

He is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

He is an anarchist poet.

He is a voice of the industrial heartland.

He is your new Poet Laureate. Remember poet laureate? 

"A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events".

An anarchist for our poet laureate. Oh, Mr. Levine, I so love you!!! PLEASE make a difference in our government - please be the voice of the industrial heartland. 

"The windows don’t see anything: they’re black,   

eyeless, they give back only what’s given;   

sometimes, like now, even less than what’s given,"

(from Detroit, Tomorrow)

 

Anarchist poet seems a harsh label for Mr. Levine. How about we just call him a humble observer who has soften over the days. 
Poet laureates usually promote a 'pet poetry project'.  The goal is to broaden the poetry audience and to encourage people to see poetry without the astigmatism of the word 'poetry'.
Mr. Levine's proposed project? "...people would be asked to name the ugliest poem they could think of."

 Oh, Mr. Levine, you already have me thinking. And laughing... And wondering where the anarchy is in your soul. I see a pretty nice guy here!

(No, not our dogs. Ours don't ride in the bed of our truck...)

The ugliest poem... think about it. I bet at least someone will suggest:

"There once was a girl from Nantucket...

 

Changing the rules

 The times are a-changing.

We found out last week that the Oxford comma is no longer necessary. And the publishing industry scrambles, adjusting to the new rules. 

The Oxford comma is the serial comma. "I went to the dog park with our dogs, Vinnie, and Lucky."  In this sentence, you know I took our dogs plus 2 other named creatures (in this case, two non-resident dogs named Vinnie and Lucky). The Oxford comma tells you that Vinnie and Lucky aren't our dogs, but friends who went with us. 

Without the Oxford comma, the sentence would read "I went to the dog park with our dogs, Vinnie and Lucky." 

OH NO, when did we get two more dogs? No wonder Sophie looks worried... 

The Oxford comma isn't named for the Oxford dictionary but for Oxford University. It was used by the writers,editors, and printers at Oxford University Press. Until last week, the Oxford (serial) comma was correct in our 'American English' (per "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" by Lynn Truss (pg. 84). But several style manuals have ignored the serial comma for years (IE, the AP manual). Even the Brits who don't go to Oxford dislike the serial comma.

So now we are in a quandry. Do Vinnie and Lucky belong to us? Or are they just friends, riding along to the dog park? Does Sophie need to worry about her domain? Can this house stand two more big dogs tromping through the hallways, sleeping on the doggy beds(,) and eating the dog food? 

My favorite reason for keeping the Oxford (serial) comma is clarity. When Aunt Bella died, her will stated, "I leave my $5 million dollar estate be divided equally to Betty, Freddie, Barbie, Jim and Susie." Should Jim and Susie be one entity, or are they separate? Is the $5 million to be divided among five or four? 

This is serious, folks. Jim and Susie might just be you someday. 

 

Sophie is assured that Vinnie and Lucky are non-resident carpool companions.

But are you sure you'd get your share of $5 million?

Believing Peter

A young co-worker died last week. He died a graphic, violent death --- self inflicted.

Where does his family, his colleagues, his friends, go from here?

We bargain. We rationalize. We try to justify. We pull out the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross books and remind ourselves of the five stages of grief. Many of us stop at anger. Few of us make it all the way to acceptance. 

And along the way, I stumbled across the book "The Believing Brain" by Michael Shermer. An interesting book... that points out that maybe we all are constantly changing our belief systems to justify an act, a sight, a belief. Buried in this oft footnoted book is a wisdom - when we know an outcome, we write the script that leads up to that outcome. 

My colleagues are all writing their own scripts for Peter's death. I am, too. We all have help in that Peter left a suicide note for us. The note is both the first AND last chapter of our scripts. So we all have the Prelude and Postlude written. And each of us wants the last ten minutes of Peter back.  We each BELIEVE we could have helped him. 

We each, individually, rationalize Peter's death. Peter rationalized his death, too.

Some of us believe he was depressed. Many of us don't believe that. Some believe he was angry. The rest of us don't. Some believe he hurt someone and suffered guilt. Most of us don't. Some believe he was just a sensitive guy who mostly feared hurting others, feared life.

We each have a Believing Brain. Peter had his, too.

Peter's chair at work sits unused. His favorite pen sits alongside the computer keyboard. The mouse pad he brought from home (Star Trek!) still is there. Only his name has been removed from the workboard and schedule. We are all sharing his work load.

None of us can share his Believing Brain... 

No one can.

68 degrees, two more dogs, and grapes

The wrap up from yesterday's blog:
This morning it is 68 degrees outside. I am reporting from our house, Arizona.
High today will be 101. Sunny. Humidity? Low - as in 9%.

Two of our dogs didn't make yesterday's blog. I have a need to be fair to all, so here they are:

Sophie

Gus

OK, now I feel better.
Ashley, the grapes vines are growing!!! I have denied them any pruning, hence they have overtaken the corner wall and arbors. No grapes yet (red flame and thompson seedless), and no leaf-eating critters, either. Just healthy, erupting leaves and vines.  After this past winter's freezes, I feared the vines were dead. But, as good bare root plants do, new shoots and stems sprung forth, producing walls of green.

Grapes

And I offer up one of our pumpkins, growing in the garden cove.  It will be long gone before Halloween. Pie, anyone?

Pumpkin

And the quilt top. The one photo that is the hardest to show.

Quilt

Today, we will learn the final steps to quilt building. Then we are free to grow or die, as quilters. I can't wait to grow!

Thank you all, for your comments yesterday.
Oh, yes, Banjomyn, Rosie Grier did needlepointing. Another art/talent to explore!

8:55 am, 50 degrees, grey and cloudy

8:55 am, 50 degrees, grey and cloudy.

Not 50 degrees, not cloudy

 No, we aren't talking about Arizona. 

50 degrees and cloudy is the daily weather report from my pen-pal, my blog friend, in Minnesota (Hi, Jo!).

OK, I admit we only have an online relationship. We "met" when one of us wrote a comment on the other one's blog. I don't exactly remember how it all started. But we "met". And we wrote. I think we started writing about our dogs, as her dog Stella looks a lot like our dog Shado. Common ground, so we wrote. 

Our Shado, my bond with Jo.

 From dogs, we progressed to books we read, to movies we watch, to hobbies we have. Jo reads a lot. And my list of 'to read' has grown a mile from her. We found out we both enjoy Powell's book reviews and interviews, we both use our library cards weekly (or more), and we both enjoy complex themes in our books.

Then we started on movies we have watched. My 'to watch' movie list has grown, too. And TV shows? She knows the oldies, right down to the cast of characters from "Homicide: Life on the Street". Pembleton is her favorite.

And Jo loves to quilt. I am just learning. Jo guides me; she takes a task I find daunting and reassures me that it isn't. You know what? Jo is right. Step by step, each cut, each stitch, each 'rip out' is easier than my brain wants to visualize.

So, I finished my first quilt top. Not a work of art, not spectacular. But I'm bouncing with excitement that it even looks like a quilt! And Jo? She is 'dazzled' by the photos I sent her. Dazzled!!!! WOW! I bounce again.

Jo is the next door neighbor I don't have. 

Jo starts every email to me with her current weather report. Which is where I started this post. Though I may never meet Jo, though Shado will never sniff Stella, though our life paths are so different, I am with Jo when I read "8:55 am, 50 degrees, grey and cloudy".

Earth: a globe

Billy Collins new book of poetry is now in my hands.

"Horoscopes for the Dead". What a gruesome title, what enjoyable poems.

From the poem "The New Globe", page 39.

"It was a birthday gift..."

"...glows from within at night..."

"... all its multicolored countries..."

"... its blue pelagic expanses..."

"... You will not see a seabird or a fellow sitting on a wall..."

"Just don't get lost like me..."

The blue planet.

Earth.

Terra. 

Beautiful.

Alleged ducks.

E. loves to share reasoning philosophy with me. Yesterday, our theme was inductive reasoning.

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."

And there is the elephant test:

"It is difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it." This reasoning was actually used in a court case (Cadogan Estates Ltd v Morris).

As was "I know it when I see it". This phrase was used by Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio.

The medical profession also uses adages. "When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra". In other words, what is an obvious diagnosis might not be. You might have a zebra.

And politics?

"You can lead a fish to water but you can't cure its fin rot." John Buckle, a British politician.

"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."  I must go check my watches. I believe I have gone on too long here.

Alleged watch.

What is your alleged favorite adage?

It's marginal

Have you ever made a note or comment in the margin of page? What kind of comment was it? A reaction? A reminder? A note to help you? Or did it express an anger, a sigh, a giggle?

So the question is asked - will marginalia disappear now that electronic reading is growing? And even if you make an electronic comment, will anyone ever find it? Or will it disappear when you delete the page, a bit of you lost/destroyed as the image dissolves into non-ash?

School kids are reminded not to write in their textbooks. The schools often own the books, and your notes in the margin 'damage' the book for the next student. When I went off to college, I wanted my textbooks to all be new. I didn't want some fellow student's discard. I wanted new, new, new. For one semester, I afforded new. By my second semester, my economic standards dwindled, and I bought all used books. By mid semester, I not only was satisfied with the monies I saved by buying used, but I was leaps ahead in understanding what my textbooks really said - I was reading the marginalia. I could trigger discussion points with my classmates - points and ideas that I would have never imagined on my own.

Take Ode To Autumn by John Keats. How many times had I read this book and made the routine acceptance that Keats wrote about autumn. Until I read a note in the margin - a note left by a previous owner of my textbook. The note? It addressed the whole second stanza, starting with Keat's word 'abroad'. Was this really meant to be "a broad"?

"Heehee," said the comment.

"... whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor... "

The next scribbled comment said "Whoa, Keats!" and was followed by a smiley face.
(Obviously, I noted, this book was previously owned by a GUY)

I re-read the first stanza.  "...Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun...

And I jumped sentences ahead.

"Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies... '

Hmmm, this guy - the previous owner of this book, the margin writer - had a point.

Was Keats dipping into porn poetry? Or was my marginal writer suffering? 

Marginalia. 

My classmates stared at me when I suggested the poem was about 'a broad'. My professor rolled his eyes. "Explain this!" he commanded. I did, following the marginalia in my used book. 

Suddenly I was the star. Because I dared to interpret, dared to find imagery, dared to be bold in my comments, the professor accepted this 'marginal' idea.

Marginalia has opened many eyes to new ideas. The whole New York Times article teaches us that margin notes are worthy and are history lessons in their own right. Sometimes marginalia can stand alone, create a thought or even a world that never would exist otherwise. 

Don't stop writing in the margins. Share your concepts, your imagery, your knowledge. Okay, don't write in a library book; keep those notes in a journal. That journal? A best seller someday??? It is marginally possible.

Here is a Billy Collins' poem on marginalia. You go places with this...

What did they mean?

Sometimes you make a mistake. 

You say something, you write something - and you find you cannot take the words back.

Othertimes you don't make a mistake.

You say something, you write something - and the listener/reader interprets the words differently.

Maybe you could take it back, but how would you know what to retract?

And sometimes, you write something that lives inside your reader forever.

Whether in context or out of context - the words resonate and leave a lasting impression.

For years, I have kept a journal of such 'writings'. 

Something I read, I kept. Even when far removed from the book/article/story, the words hang with me.

Equity, they came to realize, 

was not the same thing as equivalence, 

as evidenced by bedside tables and snowflakes.

False Friends, by Myla Goldberg, pg. 167

It surprised him that his grief

was sharper than in the past few days.

He forgot that grief does not decline

in a straight line

 or along a slow curve like a graph

in a child's math book.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson, pg. 35

Not an elegant tapestry

but a serviceable quilt.

Butterflies of the Grand Canyon, by Margaret Erhart, pg. 311

If you occasionally wonder 

how I know about some of the events 

I describe in this book, I don't. 

I have found that - just as in real life - 

imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.

An Object of Beauty, a novel, by Steve Martin, pg. 4

My physical mother is gone.

My spiritual mother remains.

I am a woman rewriting my genealogy.

Refuge, An Unnatural History of Family and Place, by Terry Tempest Williams, pg 241

When taken out of context, when used incorrectly - words, thoughts and deeds can still be meaningful. Not everyone has to see it your way or even read it with the intent you meant. 

Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder

-or the writer.