Rant: Maya Angelou is so bad

I've read poetry consistently for over 25 years, and somehow I missed Maya Angelou. I would have thought that that would have been a horrible deficiency. I now see that it a blessing in disguise. She has some of the most cliched, predictable garbage I have ever read.


I now know why the caged bird also sings. It isn't for freedom. It's hoping to lose its voice so that when it goes down into the mine shaft with Maya, it will be unable to warn her of the poison fumes. We need to honor that bird's sacrifice.


I will write a poem with that title (I also know why the caged bird sings). I will.


Here's are some of her more famous poems. If you are worried about choking when you vomit in your mouth I would encourage you to stop reading now:


Phenomenal Woman (poemhunter ranks this as the # 1 poem)


Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.



Or this gem,



Touched by an Angel (the #5 poem on poemhunter)



We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
I'd post more but it's too painful.

Raving: Why my Son isn't ready for a pet yet

My two-year old son Zane was doing what he normally does every evening: running through the house like a class five tornado. Eventually, and it's always eventually, my wife Erica and I hear a loud bump followed by a cry. Zane steps into view slapping his head with his palm and saying "BOMP". He then preceeded to slap the breakfast table so that we would know what hurt him. Our son is a master of pre-language charades.


Erica asked him if he would like her to kiss his owiee--which he did. He came running up and lowered his head for her kiss. Smiling he returned to play, OR SO WE THOUGHT. He walked over and grabbed his Tom Kitten Beanie Baby (pictured below)

For this dramatic reinactment the part of Zane Wylie will be played by Tom Kitten




Zane then proceeded to take Tom and slam him face first 4-5 times hard into the breakfast table leg. He then ran back to his mother and held Tom up for a kiss.


Having his own kitty is many many years away.

Dabbling in Form

On one of the poetry websites I frequent, they got a new moderator. She is an expert (though I bet she'll hate that term) in meter and formal poetry. My poems are largely free verse. I have found form stiffling and haven't really done a lot to develop any skill there. There seem to be two camps among poetry people: There's the free verse side that wants no restrictions and finds form archaic and irrelevant. There's the form side that finds free verse poetry unstructured and in the extreme--not poetry. There are of course the hundred shades of gray in the middle.


So, this moderator decided to put a poetry practice out to get us used to meter and form. We were asked to write a Kyrielle. Here's the background and the form for those of you that are adventurous:


The word kyrielle comes from "kyrie eleison", Greek for "Lord have mercy" -- a popular refrain in Christian Mass. A kyrielle consists of quatrains (at least three, but without limit to the number), each with the refrain as the last line. The form is generally written in the hymnal meter (iambic tetrameter) -- whatever meter you choose, it should be consistent enough that the rhymes fall in the right places.


The rhyme scheme is:


a-a-b-B
c-c-b-B
d-d-b-B
and so on...


with B being the refrain.


So, I read this over-and-over again and try to decide what I'll write. Here's how I finally got the idea.


My convoluted thought process:

• I talk with my friend Brendan from Vermont and we make a reference to bad dental hygene by the people living in the backwoods up there.
• I write down the phrase: The Land of Bad Teeth
• I think of the nightmare where your teeth fall out.
• I think of Nightmare on Elm Street
• I think why did Freddie Kruger target teens (probably a "don't have sex or you will die message"). I also figured teenagers don't have the same type of fears that the older set does. Maybe just maybe they would welcome death.

So, I tell my wife, Erica, what I'm writing about, and she get's annoyed with me for taking something pretty like an Anglican Mass and tying it to a 1980s slasher movie.


I finished the poem and while our meter expert did acknowledge that I stretched the meter on one line she said that in her opinion it was perfect iambic tetrameter which felt really good (people hear stresses differently so it's likely that others may hear the poem with a different meter). I was pleased that she at least thought so. I've resisted form also because it felt like starting over. What I found out though was that isn't really true. I used to be so concerned about rhyme that I ignored imagery. I feel that didn't happen here. I'm happy with how this one came out. In fact, the form actually made some lines better when I had to shift words around for it's sake.


Here's the poem:

My Nightmare on My Street

As knives stretch from your fingertips,
the boiler's hiss, the darkness drips,
but young men's fears aren't mine to take.
Could I please die before I wake?

I understand you didn't need
young teens who only wish to breed.
I'd kill them too. I've lost that ache.
Could I please die before I wake?

Each day I sit in asphalt haze,
a brake light death of small delays.
Of this communion I partake.
Could I please die before I wake?

The miles form a metronome
of cell phone calls and shining chrome,
a slow decay with each mistake.
Could I please die before I wake?

From empty cube, to empty room,
the jasmine scent of stale perfume
a window blackened now, opaque.
Could I please die before I wake?

Faces: Jimmy Hoffa

The Great Jimmy Hoffa Scavenger Hunt

His voice still ghosts as angry static
over the twisted
pair of copper phone lines. You only see
an empty Green Pontiac,
an open driver’s door.
Yet, the steel drums remain full
of possibility, rusting
sentinels in Jersey City landfills. You imagine
Giants Stadium could frame his bones—
as if he cared for childish pursuits
played by that pussy Bobby Kennedy.

We do not see his tears
bleed from statues,
or his face form in a clump
of mashed potatoes, and mistake him
for Abraham Lincoln, or Jesus,
or David Cassidy—as if any of them ascended
from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox.

This is no skin-scraping, finger-bone-divining séance.
There is no tap we wait to hear.
If you must look to the dead for guidance,
ask Mary Jo, the drowned girl,
to write her prophecy in the grease
trap drippings scrawling
with her limp finger:

That which is dead
will not remain so.
That which is buried
will rise.

Faces: Harry Houdini

The Amazing Sexual Exploits of Harry Houdini

He liked to be handcuffed—
and not with those
fuzzy pink novelties.

He liked the ones that bite
against the wrists,
the ephemeral challenge
of something like helplessness.

There was always the foreplay
of card tricks, the predictable appetites
of birthday-entertainers
with store-bought illusions.

Old pleasure is a faded stage
bouquet of plastic flowers,
a dehydrated dove.
Magic’s raw essence is misdirection.

Showing off a new spectacle,
suspended upside down,
bound and lowered
into this baptism

of black water. Each second
like the pulse of a metronome,
the faint ripple of eternity.

Escape while possible,
is unsatisfying—
not the same as release.

Any amateur could perform
in private. The thrill
was in being exposed.

Poetry about People

My other option besides reworking my Gospel of John poetry is a collection I want to call faces. So far, I have a lot of "H" named people. I'd like to make about forty of these poems. My method is to read biography after biography to find the angle of approach.

So far I have:

• Howard Hughes (already posted earlier)
• Harry Houdini
• Jimmy Hoffa

There was a collection being done on Amelia Earhart that I got an invitation to submit to. The problem is after studying her I've concluded that she was a media creation and not all that interesting. There's still a possiblity to add her to this group, though the rendition wouldn't be that flattering.

One of my favorite stories by James Thurber

"The Owl Who Was God"

Once upon a starless midnight there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by, unnoticed. "You!" said the owl. "Who?" they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness. "You two!" said the owl. The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question. "I’ll see about that, "said a secretary bird, and he called on the owl one night when it was again very dark. "How many claws am I holding up?" said the secretary bird. "Two," said the owl, and that was right. "Can you give me another expression for ‘that is to say’ or ‘namely’?" asked the secretary bird. "To wit," said the owl. "Why does the lover call on his love?" "To woo," said the owl.

The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl indeed was the greatest and wisest animal in the world because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question. "Can he see in the daytime, too?" asked a red fox? "Yes," answered a dormouse and a French poodle. "Can he see in the daytime, too?" All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region. They sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader.

When the owl appeared among the animals it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. "He’s God!" screamed a Plymouth rock hen. And the others took up the cry "He’s God!" So they followed him wherever he went and when he bumped into things they began to bump into things, too. Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him. Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl. "There’s danger ahead," said the secretary bird. "To wit?" said the owl. The secretary bird told him. "Aren’t you afraid?" he asked. "Who?" said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. "He’s God!" cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying "He’s God" when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.



Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

Now for a Raving: The Proposed Circumcision Ban

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/05/27/2011-05-27_ballot_measure_banning_circumcision_may_be_up_for_vote_in_santa_monica.html

Interesting story! Before I state my take on this just an observation: I always feel that people on different sides of an argument may have a good case but go to far. This article may be right in many of its points but it says:

"Many men who are circumcised suffer the same psychological effects found in rape victims," the group wrote. "A sense of great loss and feelings of anger, distrust, and grief are common among circumcised men who are aware of the functions that the foreskin performs."

I have a hard time buying that.

Do I like the idea of circumcision? No, not at all. I think it's unnecessary mutilation soft-sold as some sort of medical advantage. That said, should there a law banning it? Now, that's a little tougher to say. Statistics are showing that rate of parents having their sons circumcised in the US has dropped from 56% in 2006 to 32.5% in 2010 (source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/u-s-circumcision-rates-on-the-decline/ ). Meaning it might phase itself out without legal measures. So, I probably wouldn't look for a legal remedy for my opinion of it all. Though, if the law passed the precedent wouldn't make me sad.

All that said, the law as proposed says that when a boy becomes a legal adult at 18, he has the right to decide what to do with his body. Well, I think it's safe to say that virtually no one would have this operation when they are 18. I think it's also clear that if this were even done at 4 or 5 years old most parents would balk at performing the operation (maybe that in itself should tell us something).

The question that I guess we should ask ourselves is what right do parents have in general over their children. Where do the childrens' rights begin, and what happens when they are too young to make their opinions known. I am well aware that this issue could be replaced with:

• Denying medical treatment to a child
• Teenage Abortion
• Vaccination debates

and on and on...

The world gets more complicated by the day.

Poem: A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

You flung the stars like fireflies

to burn holes into night’s hunger,
to ignite the shine of galaxies;
dust infused with
the brilliance of your image.

You, the cloudless day—
clouds an afterthought,
a judgment—set aside
the final day to put all at rest
beneath that Tree brought into uniform
motion with your presence.

Our fall,
a sacrifice of light
speed, darkness the event
horizon that made you appear
to slow down.

The days become millennia.
Still you retreat
trapped between
our seconds.

We long to resynchronize
with the limitless.
The sheen on our eyes shifts
to speed past
the horn’s crystal
blast for sound only came first, once.

Our mistake was to believe
that eternity is endless
days, rather than
immutable velocity.
~~~

(Not that I expect anyone to read all the footnotes but I'll leave them there if anyone is interested how this came together)

Footnotes:

Gen. 1:1-3, 14, 26; 1 Jn. 1:5; Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:1-3a; Gen. 3:6-8; 2 Pet. 3:8-9a; 1 Cor. 15:50-52; Rev. 21:23; Rev. 22:5

The speed of light is the same for all observers.
The laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers.
"Uniformly" = "with a constant velocity"
Any uniformly moving observer can consider themselves to be "at rest".
The speed of light is a Universal Constant.
Observers moving relative to each other:
--Do not measure the same times.
--Disagree on what events occur simultaneously.
Space and Time are relative.
United by light into Spacetime.
Only spacetime has an absolute reality independent of the observer.

Poem: Logos

The flavor you are trying to describe
is found in the seeds
of the pomegranate,
mixed with moonlight, and tears. You will never
forget this taste. I pity you.
Everything will be less
vibrant now
If you had asked:
How are we alike?
The stars would still be your blanket.
The garden still soft beneath your feet.

No. I would not have said love—that is not
the image you bear. The sword still spins
to protect this creation from your harsh love.
A love that would crush the jay in its hands
The blood sings from the ground to Me—
not for vengeance—but in awe.

Does that give you a clue?

I am a Namer. I create with words.
What was light before I said it?
You also name. I would not
take that from you though
your tongue has turned black.
You do more than define—you create.
The thought gives birth to the word;

the word precedes the act.
What was murder before you said it?
You have continued to name

Deceit
Fear
Shame

Each word conceives and confines.

You still lack patience.
You will not hear me.
My words will no longer strive
with your limited vocabulary.
I leave you one behind.

Hope

It didn’t exist before I said it.
At the proper time you must scream it
to the hills and look up.
You will find Me waiting there,
I never left.
For I too am a Namer,
and I AM patient.

Poem: What the Storm Taught Me

The sky was dark like the terror of children  

left alone. Ropes tight

‘round hands—unclenching,

palsied crows-claws

callused as the words

on my tongue,

the salt from my heart.

Fishermen casting our nets ,

becoming the catch

of this man of words

who brought us here.

This man at home with wood

buckling beneath him slept:

as the mast splintered,

as the sail snapped,

as our pleas turned

to wailing, he slept

to wake to the spray

of our accusations, groggy

as if pulled from a conversation.

He spoke to the tempest

as a person.  At once

the sea became a mirror

the sun a torch in a sky

now vacant blue.

In the stillness there existed

a greater dread. We could not bear

to hear this voice

that could command the wind.

What is a leper?  Or a blind man?

Or the raising of the dead? Compared

to a sea that recognizes its creator.

He that spoke light

had returned light to us,

and we longed to throw ourselves

into the darkness,

to hide within the storm.

Poem: Laughter

I was that gray mouse frozen
beneath the shadow of an owl—
a rock, a leaf, do not notice
this small tremor
in an empty moonless night.

It was the birth announcement.
Prayers returned to mock us,
We couldn’t see the barbed hook
you would pull to hurt us, entrap
the bitter with the sweet,

Her laughter wasn’t for you.

I should have warned;
our thoughts--a cloudless sky,
nothing hidden.

Were we responsible?

For your killing ground,
your wounded pride.

The accusation still comes
in each yellowed dawn,
dew mixed with sulfur,
I will always live,
that rotton stench
God help me live,
beneath that ash-soaked sky
the grass dust
when the mountains fell
to consume the valley

Now, the shadow of Moriah looms:
to kill my laughter,
to teach my son—
that even a loving Father—
can wield a knife.

This was the beginning of my wisdom.
There is no escape from you.

Poem: Wrath Like Thunder

The blood was a whisper
beneath the soil
damp with accusation
as the mist that once rose.
Until I held the world
under water, matching murder
drop-for-drop
with no one left to cry out.

The Rapture and Religious Poetry

So according to Harold Camping, the Rapture is under five hours away. Essentially, the Rapture is based on a reading in Paul's epistles that takes about the Restrainer being removed and the Man of Lawlessness being revealed. There is a school of thought among some Christians popularized by the Left Behind novels (awful writing, awful theology, plain awful) that considers that Restrainer to be the indwelling Holy Spirit in Christians. In this model, essentially the Holy Spirit rises back to Christ and all the Christians go with him. This isn't the first time Camping declared that the Rapture was upon us the first time was in 1994. Some people never learn.

This made me reflect on the religious themed poems I have written. In some ways, I find these as hard to write as love poetry. It's very easy to fall into cliche, jargon, and sentimentality. While I consider myself a Christian, I think my poems on the subject would disturb those that hold similar beliefs.

I'll post a few of them individually, but so far I have:

A comparison of Cain killing Abel and God wiping out the world through flood

A look at Abraham asked to sacrifice his son reflecting on the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah

A consideration on what it means to made in God's image (2 poems):

--God is light, we are light

--God is a creator, we are creators

--The disciples reaction to Jesus calming the sea.

I wrote these poems over a period of five years and the quality and tone varies wildly. I'm not sure if I like all of them but I'll post them in separate entries to commerate another missed Rapture prediction.

I'm tempted to rewrite the Gospel of John in poetic form, and also to redo the parables. Maybe I'll use this blog for that.

Poetry Tips Learned Along the Way: Don't Communicate

Taken from Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town:

Hugo made a comment that made me really think. He said that when writing (poetry was in view here), "Don't Communicate."

That sounds so counter-intuitive. Shouldn't we want to communicate? Hugo is not talking about poorly written abstract work. The point he is making is that when language exists for the sole purpose of conveying information language in a real sense dies. Information takes precendence over the words themselves.

He relates this to how we listen to stories on the News. Once we've been told about the ________ (fire, traffic, weather, etc) the words themselves become unimportant. By understanding the words of the news article, by getting used to reading on a surface level we deaden the language. We get so used to limiting language to an information transfer that it can affect our own writing.

Hugo: "The relationship of the words to the subject must weaken and the relationship of the words to the writer (you) must take on strength."

When I read bad poetry. Let me emphasize further, when I read my own bad poetry. One of the reasons that it is bad is becuase I'm wasting precious words explaining things in a pedestrian non-interesting way.

You see this quite a bit with opening lines. People sometimes use the line to set the scene and convey information. If the opening feels pedestrian and stale this is probably one of the key reasons.

Tip: The words are more important than the subject conveyed. Watch out for the tendency to merely pass on information.

Here's a poem I wrote four years ago, I thought I was done until I looked back at some awful opening lines. I end up later deciding to start the poem on what was originally line three. The original opening lines are in the brackets:

Howard and the Details

"Old clothes are more friendly"

-Howard Hughes after contracting syphilis on why he burnt his expensive clothing adopting a more simple wardrobe.

"Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos And Letters" by Richard Hack

***

[They never noticed

the details] 
Jane Russell had
four nipples.
Peas were
different sizes.
Peaches were
dirty, dirty, dirty.
Germs crawl
all over your face,

hands, touch
food with those?

Make the peaches

dirtier.

They didn’t pay attention.
Bette Davis’ bed was covered
in orchids, not gardenias.
Tiny blisters on the palms?
Syphilis! No, film editing.
Mason jars—perfect for storing
urine, and TV
dinners should always
remove that soggy-cherry thing.
Peach cobbler is better.

They didn’t know
what to do.
Fix the blouse;
it’s an engineering problem.
Line them up
use a fork for perspective.
To prevent sores
Mop with lye.
Burn the double-breasted tuxedo,
and all white dinner jackets.
Remember old clothes
are more friendly.

And if I’m going
to eat those things?

Scrub off the label!
Clean the bare metal
of the can. Be careful
with the fork; don’t touch
anything else. Did you remember
to cover your hands
with six Kleenex (not five or seven)?

They didn’t notice. They didn’t listen.
And the damn plane was birch
not spruce.

Now normally I like my first lines to be complete thoughts. The speaker of this piece though is a bit disjointed so I like the stacatto breaks. Normally I would have started with:

Jane Russell had four nipples.

First Poem I Ever Wrote: And Why Its Hideous

I took a creative writing class in high school with my friend Julie (who's a good writer). It was here that I wrote my first poem. I probably won't catch everything that's awful about this one but I'll give it a try. I think we see people after they've put in the time at something and we mistakenly think that they were always at this "finished product" point. We then look at our own work and fall into depression. We suck! We'll always suck! That's just the way it is. Well, no it isn't.

Here's my first poem:

Outcast

I step out of the shadows
Screaming in the void
The world offers no solace
life's something to avoid

My eyes reflect no feeling
My heart gives off no warmth
My soul is aching, empty
I'm crying in the dark

Life is but a mockery
Mingled with contempt
Hollow laughter is consumed
By sorrow and regret

This world is full of worthless games
tinged with our despair
If only I was worthy
If only I could care

~~~

I apologize for the delay in commenting I'm throwing up in my mouth.

Whew!

In my defense, and there's little of that, I was in highschool. It was decades before goth or emo. I had never written a poem before and it shows.

What is wrong with it:

It's a dairy entry. It's me talking about that infinite sadness that only seems true at 17. There is no imagery at all. Poems are meant for the most part to show what they mean. There are cliches (screaming in the void, soul, etc). The syntax is forced and "poetic" in all the wrong ways (My soul is aching empty, Life is but a mockery). There is nothing concrete to grasp onto. It is a bunch of linked abstactions. It attempts rhyme--because poetry is supposed to rhyme right--and ignores meter. Nothing at all redeemable.

I was likely listening to too much Oingo Boingo when I wrote it (though in fairness to the band they never wrote anything this bad.

This is the first step in the journey (and I promise not to walk you through the full twenty years of bad poems.

Getting Started

I've never had the desire to blog. It could be that I missed the generational cut off line like how my grandparents didn't use computers or VCRs. However maybe I'm just showing my age and contempt to the activity sort of an early onset of: "Hey! you kids get off my lawn." For those of you that have went before me here unless you're total narcissists you're probably like me in thinking: Who is going to read what I have to say?

Let's find out:

Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers talked about the 10,000 hour rule. His thought was that it takes at least 10,000 hours at an activity to have a level of mastery in it. I remember reading that and thinking great now how have I been spending my time?

The two areas that I probably have that level of mastery are in my career (VP of Sales of used telecom products) and in writing poetry. Right now, you've probably slumped back on your sectional sofa and thinking, "Man, that guy is living the dream." I know. I sometimes get jealous of myself too.

While I could go into how to price product and make money in the used market, let's start with poetry.

When Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to master something, he fails to point out how awful the first 9,000 of those hours are. I've produced some truly awful work. I remember struggling with concepts that now are second nature to me.

I'll try to take you all through some of my early work (shudder). Go over some of the things I learned either through trial and error or from other sources, and also share some of my later work (which I'll probably cringe at in another ten years as well.

Writing is a lifetime sort of thing. While I just sent a few poems out for publication (they were solicited), I mostly don't write to publish. I write to create something worthwhile.

There are many times that I wish I chose carpentry, or auto mechanics, or just about anything practical to spend my 10,000 hours on, but we ultimately get what we get--and anyway people with those skills are probably wishing they wrote, painted, or played music.

More later