From Lawrence Joseph, Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos: Poems 1973-1993 (2005):

Out of the Blue

Not that we lacked experience.
We simply had no talent for murder.
And then it was November again.

The air brisk and cold, light clicked
softly in a burnished glow.
A world with its own wild system of desires.

Yet somehow more fragile.
In a completely different place
from its syntax, in fact—far ahead of it.

And who could not be struck by the notion?
A Great Wheel, gold and gray,
out of the blue, burst in flame.

Taking the shape of the moment.
Disappearing
in a crevice in the sky.

The blogger takes to his laptop, and sets out to roam the web in search of marvels:

* Sean Walsh, late of the now-defunct London News Review Books Diary, has a new weblog called The Midnight Bell (via Saloon). Funny man, that Sean.

* In his latest post, Sean claims never to have heard of Gilbert Sorrentino. In a podcast earlier this week, Ander Monson, discussing experimental novels, said he’s read Sorrentino but never gotten into him. Gerald Howard, writing in Bookforum, will have none of that kind of talk. “[Sorrentino] has captivated me ever since I discovered Steelwork (1970), his novel of sharply etched and chronologically shuffled vignettes of working-class Brooklyn types gradually corrupted by wartime and postwar prosperity.”

* James Tata reports on a lecture by Gilead author Marilynne Robinson. “Fiction is narrative freed from the standard of truth,” she observed. Does she get the paper? Apparently so: when asked in the Q&A session about memoirs, she said they are lovely works of fiction with strong elements of truth.

* Speaking of getting the paper, Joseph Epstein reports in the January issue of Commentary that he doesn’t. Get the paper, I mean. “My father took his paper seriously in another way, too. He read it after dinner and ingested it, like that dinner, slowly, treating it as a kind of second dessert: something at once nutritive and entertaining. He was in no great hurry to finish. Today, his son reads no Chicago newspaper whatsoever.” The article is a well-considered piece on why newspapers are in the trouble they are in.

* The anonymous author of Paper Moustache has resolved to blog “every single independent bookstore in the Chicagoland area.” He starts with City Bookshop on Irving Park.

* The LitShow is back with new roster of guests for the new year, including novelists Andrew Winston, Brian Costello, and Samantha Hunt.

* Turning to the fine arts, as I always do when February approaches: Do you think it’s really Sister Wendy in this discussion thread at the Saatchi Gallery website? She had me at “jardins secret.”

Almost forgot to mention: I won’t be joining you laddies for the Burns Supper tonight at the Duke of Perth. Mrs. Jones is using the kilt for her weekly clog-dancing class. Sadly, household economies allow us only one pair. Ah, well, there’s always next year.

Anyhow, in lieu of my company you can enjoy my world tour of Robert Burns statues, with which I marked this date in 2005.

Down LBC way, Ander Monson describes the aims behind the formal experimentation in his novel, Other Electricities:

The book itself is very obsessed with structure — finding ways to deal with and order grief, despair, these otherwise irreducible human experiences — and I see the structures as one of several lenses through which readers can approach the book. One thing I was thinking about in its creation and revision was trying to find other ways of satisfying readers, of creating a rich, complex reading experience without simply relying on narrative arc. Partly that’s a weakness in my own writing, I think, my inability to get into (or disinterest in) straightforward narrative, and as such my use of what can come across as trickeration, but in my writing I have tried to tie the formal innovations and constraint as closely as I can to the emotional content — the heart, if you want — of the story.

After which, Monson engages in a lively exchange with those responding in the comments thread. I think I’m beginning to understand how he earned the nickname nostro uomo from his native peninsula’s British overlords.

I’m sure in idle moments you’ve been wondering about my reaction to the redesign of the Chicago Tribune Books Section. Before I clapped eyes on it, my curiosity was piqued by a item in Michael Miner’s “Hot Type” column in last week’s Reader, which said the new tabloid design would result in less space for books coverage than the previous, broadsheet format, according to Trib books editor Elizabeth Taylor.

The question in mind my was, how much less space?

Well, I’ve done a little comparison of the contents of Sunday’s tabloid issue with four broadsheet issues I looked at in detail last year (Feb 27, Mar 21, Apr 3, and Apr 17).

Focusing only on full reviews of fiction and non-fiction titles — that is, excluding crime fiction, children’s books, and other content like bestseller lists — Sunday’s issue totaled 5,475 words. For comparison, last year’s sections for which I have word counts (Apr 3 and Apr 17) averaged 6,204 words.

If we look at number of titles covered, we see that Sunday’s section included 3 titles in the Fiction/Poetry category, and 2 Non-Fiction. By contrast, last year’s sections ranged from 2 to 4 Fiction/Poetry and 3 to 5 Non-Fiction.

I can’t explain the disparity between the relatively large decline in number of titles covered and the smaller difference in word count. I see they’ve eliminated the shorter reviews, so maybe that’s it.

Anyhow, I like the change — if only because tabloid is the format of “real” books sections, and because it eliminates the spiritual desolation I used to feel when I opened the old broadsheet section only to find one pathetic sheet inside.

If you get different numbers than I do, lemme know.

By the way, re Miner’s piece, is it really true that there are only five free-standing book reviews in the country? If so, wouldn’t you expect that ads from publishers would easily support all five? Not so, apparently. Another surprise from what we laughingly call the publishing business.

Yes, mister, that’s me up on the jukebox, singing an implausible tune about my brief friendship — more like an acquaintanceship, really — with John Ruskin. The dialogue, which is otherwise about Ander Monson’s Other Electricities, also features Dan Wickett, Matt Cheney, and (the soon-to-appear) Gwenda Bond, and will continue tomorrow.

But do check out the podcast with Monson, conducted by the tireless Edward Champion with his usual perpendicularity. I was surprised to hear that Monson hates snow — he finds it depressing and even threatening. I’ll have to retire to my cork-lined room to consider the implications of this new fact.

How cool is this: starting in March, the Instituto Cervantes de Chicago is sponsoring a series entitled “Great Writers of the Spanish Language.” (link here – scroll down.) The series begins with lectures on María Zambrano and José Hierro in March, continues in April with appearances by two Cervantes-award winners (Jorge Edwards and Gonzalo Rojas), and concludes in May with a visit by Argentine novelist Tomás Eloy Martínez.

Kind of makes you wonder what we missed back in the old days, before we started following literary events at local cultural organizations (Cervantes, Alliance Francaise, Instituto Italiano dia Cultura Chicago, the Irish-American Heritage Center, the Mexican Fine Arts Center, and Goethe-Institut — especially Goethe-Institut) and university departments of foreign languages.

Ellis Sharp has a “hot tip for the 2006 Booker Prize longlist”:

Watch out for Londonstani and The Killing Jar. One of these two novels stands a good chance of being on the list. Perhaps both of them will make it. Who knows, one of them might even make the final shortlist.

I say this with some confidence, having read neither novel.

I haven’t even seen copies.

These two novels aren’t yet published.

And when they are I shan’t read either of them.

Though I’m confident they will be widely and favourably reviewed and be prominently on display in bookshops.

So what makes me so confident about their prize-winning potential?

Read on to find out.

Catching up with my LitKicks today. Levi Asher got the Complete New Yorker for Hanukkah, and samples the early issues to answer the question, just what was the original New Yorker?

Okay, let’s add up the ingredients here:– Excessive use of irony
– Rampant sense of exclusivity with small group of fabulous friends
– Chronic self-pity mixed with compulsive fake-coy self-promotion
– Jokes that don’t make sense
– Subtle but disturbing hints of true mental illness

Do the math. You see it as clearly as I do … the original New Yorker was a litblog.

The “Talk of the Town” item from 1925 from which he quotes is a priceless little period piece.

Also check out Levi’s cool photographs of some of the locations in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

Desaulniers’s mention of the Chicago Humanities Festival reminded me that I hadn’t talked about the sessions I saw last fall. Here’s something on one of them. Apologies in advance for the length.

Is the Art Institute on a Saturday afternoon really the best place for a poetry reading?¹ Such were my thoughts on November 5 as I worked my way through a crowd of weekend museum-goers to see Stuart Dybek and Lawrence Joseph in a Chicago Humanities Festival session entitled “The Time and Place of the Poem.”²

About 100 people were seated when Dybek and Joseph took the stage. Dybek wore a black long-sleeved polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes. Joseph wore a dark sport coat and dress shirt with dark dress trousers. The session ran one hour, with a 10 minute Q&A. The poets sat on either side of a round table set with a vase of flowers and two bottles of spring water. Patrick Shaw of the Poetry Foundation gave an admirably short introduction (”Dybek is the one with the mustache”), and we were off and running.³

The poets took turns, reading two or three poems with a few prefatory remarks. Both read in a natural speaking voice, which is the way I like it. Dybek reads softly and ends each poem abruptly, as if he’s glad to have gotten through it. Sometimes at the end of the poem he left a pause, into which I found myself silently inserting the words, “Aw, the hell with it.” Though of course he never said that. Joseph’s delivery was a little sharper. You can hear both poets in the sound clips I link to at the end of this post.

Dybek focused on poems from his most recent book, Streets in Their Own Ink. He read:

“The Volcano”
“Benediction”
“Election Day”
“Sirens”
“Journal”
“Bath”

He also read “Today, Tonight,” which hasn’t been published in book form, and “Between,” which appeared in After Hours a while ago. I don’t think he read anything from his first book.

Joseph has a new book of poetry, Into It. He also has a new collection, Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos: Poems 1973-1993, which consists of his previous three books (Shouting at No One, Curriculum Vitae, and Before Our Eyes) collected into one volume. From Into It he read:

“In It, Into It, Inside It, Down In”
“The Bronze-Green Gold Green Foreground”
“On That Side”
“Unyeildingly Present”

He also read “Do What You Can” from Shouting, and “The Great Society” and “By the Way” from Curriculum. He also read a poem that included the phrase “a world is a wild system of desires,” which is driving me nuts because I liked it and can’t find it in any of his books.

Dybek started. “The Volcano” was inspired by a visit he made to his old neighborhood (Pilsen/Little Village) last year with Judy Valente for Chicago Public Radio (audio here). They were standing behind the house he grew up in on 25th Street, and when he looked up he noticed the gigantic brick chimney that he used to gaze up at as a child. “The Volcano” tries to capture the feelings that chimney evoked.

Before reading “Benediction,” Dybek explained the importance of Catholic traditions and rites in his old neighborhood. When the priest would hold the monstrance above his head, it would look “almost as if it was burning.” The word “monstrance” itself had had strange, frightening echoes. Then Dybek paused, smiled, and said, “I wish I had put that stuff into the poem.” [Laughter]

Later, he talked about the misconception that poets who write about the city don’t write about nature. He mentioned a Milkweed Press anthology about looking for nature in the city. By way of introducing his poem, “Today, Tonight,” he mentioned how, when he was 25, he moved from Chicago to St. Thomas in the Caribbean for a teaching job. He lived there for two years on a hill that overlooked Drake’s Passage. The poem was inspired by his experience one day watching (with some puzzlement) a herd of goats swimming out to sea.

Joseph, like Dybek, was raised a Catholic in an immigrant family. Joseph’s family is Lebanese and Syrian, and his father ran a market in inner-city Detroit. (Here’s a picture of the building where the market used to be.) A crucial event in Joseph’s life occurred on February 2, 1970, when his father was shot in a hold-up at the market. Joseph explained that although he’s lived in New York since 1981, the city of Detroit exerts a continuing influence on his poetry. He cited Dante and Cavafy, both strongly identified with their home cities, as poets he particularly admired.

Before reading “Unyieldingly Present,” Joseph talked about lower Manhattan, where he now lives. He was there on the morning of 9/11, and in fact he and his wife were unable to find each other for more than a day after the event. He read each line of the poem almost as if it were a question.

As an introduction to his poem “On That Side,” Joseph talked about Green Dolphin Street, the classic jazz tune mentioned in the poem. He noted he’d heard about the bar in Chicago by the same name, but had never visited it. His favorite version of the tune is by Dinah Washington. He talked about his father’s admiration for Washington’s husband, Dick “Night Train” Lane, who played for the Detroit Lions in the 1960s. This must have produced some reaction from an old-time Bears fan in the front rows, because Joseph quickly added, “Well, you can hiss [if you want].” He said his father almost threw the TV through the window when the Bears of that era beat his beloved Lions.

For a moment I thought Joseph was actually angry. Then I realized he was kidding. But after that, as I listened to him read, I noticed that real anger threads through many of his poems. It’s something that’s immediately obvious when you read his poetry; it’s peculiar that, seeing him read, it took that awkward moment for me to notice.

Before reading “Bath,” Dybek said “I think the only thing you need to know before I read this poem is that ‘busha’ means grandmother.”⁴ The poem describes how a grandmother lovingly bathes her grandson. A nice image in this poem: “Busha towels his hair / as if reviving a drowned sailor / the sea has graciously returned.”

Here’s an abbreviated account of the Q&A session:

For Lawrence: You mentioned Cavafy — how has he influenced your work?

“A lot. And he’s also influenced Stuart. If you don’t know, Cavafy was a Greek poet who lived in Alexandria. He’s really the poet that made me aware of the poetic potential of the city that one knows — he made Alexandria mythical. Dybek does that for Chicago, by the way. Even Bellow didn’t make Chicago mythical like Dybek does.”

For Stuart: To what extent does childhood become a necessary subject? Or, when you wrote about cities, where does childhood fit in?

“Having written a book called Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, you’d think I could answer that question, wouldn’t you? [Laughter] Childhood is deeply integrated, not even separate from our home places. A kid’s neighborhood can be an extraordinary reality. It isn’t about nostalgia; it’s about changes in perception as you grow older. The relationship between childhood and London in Charles Dickens is a great example.”

[Joseph added his observation about Detroit being unusual in that it's a city you experienced, as a child, mostly from the window of a car, and at the same time you're always aware that Detroit was where cars came from. His point eludes me, actually, but it strikes me as the kind of thought a poem could better convey.]

For Stuart, is the poem “Three Windows” about a specific time and place?

Yes, “Three Windows” is about a place called the Logan Arms Hotel.

For Lawrence: How do law and poetry enhance each other for you?

“Writing came first. But the most important thing a writer needs is freedom to write, and law has given that to me. Almost all of my peers who went into literature — it reminds me of Wittgenstein who said “the limits of my library are the limits of my world.” For me, I have the need imaginatively to be in the world rather than in the library. Observing human behavior is important to me.”

___________________________________________

More Information: Dybek reading “Windy City”and “Autobiography” from Streets in Their Own Ink