Sigh No More

After Lorca

The sea has no oranges, Seville no love.

Sunburned girl, give me a parasol to shelter

from your fiery eyes. You said pececillos

but I heard peccadillos—instead of fish

in an orangeless sea, foibles in a loveless city.

Lines Written between Dublin and Keflavik

These words are not meant to be read

in their entirety. Skim them

the way this plane skims the cloud layer,

jostling sometimes, jarring us

from half-sleep. Pass over them

the way your eyes drift over headlines

in airport kiosks — words that give a sense

of pope and president, stock fluctuation

and civil war. That way you can take them

how you want to — to make or remake

to be about you (which they are)

or to not be about you (which they also are).

Hollisterian Nouning

Glancing at a receipt for a flannel shirt this morning, I saw the shirt itemized as wovens.  Now I realize I'm not in a strong position to judge seeing as I'm shopping at Hollister but don't like this past participle adjective being used as a noun. Wovens to me feels like filling your mouth with water, opening your mouth halfway, and trying to keep it from sloshing out. 

It's pretty common to noun verbs and adjectives -- "receive the invite," or "make the gender reveal." Donald Trump's tweeted a dehumanizing and ugly riposte to Ann Coulter, claiming that "tens of thousands of illegals are being apprehended at the border." That particularly ugly illustration shows just how insubstantial nouned adjectives are. Here, someone is reduced to a description, humanity and substance stripped. That's what nouning does, reduce something to a category, a quality. 

Sure, there's not much danger in retail as in politics, but you can see the trend there. It's a brave new world where you can put on a woven, pop a few edibles, and drop that invite into the mail.

Time of No Reply

Homeric Thoughts on Being Home

The last months saw me far-flung, from the high deserts of New Mexico to the grass-clad steeps of Faroe. Travel is a wonder but I can't shake the Homeric truth Odysseus tells Nausicaa -- Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass his own home and his parents? In far lands he shall not, though he find a house of gold.

30/30 -- Round Four

Tomorrow is August which means more dry heat here in Santa Fe and a start to another round of 30/30, Tupelo Press' poem a day challenge. This is my fourth time around for this daunting challenge. It'll be an interesting one as I'll be far-flung for it -- New Mexico, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Denmark, and Ireland. Writing a poem a day will be the thread to hold the disparate locations together.

I hope you'll join me in my journey and follow me (and the other great poets) as we write our way into newness and revelation -- who knows what the page will bring?! There are three ways you can support me during this coming marathon of writing.

Read. The best way to support my journey to read along. Last year, so many people were kind enough to follow my daily progress and to get in touch with messages of encouragement and appreciation. Just knowing you're out there means a lot. And get in touch with my fellow 30/30 sprinters if you like what they're writing.

Collaborate. My friend Laurel got off to a head start on this one dropping me a postcard with a great poetry prompt on it. Many of my previous 30/30 poems came from reader suggestions. Others doodled out lines from my poems in art/word drawings. One friend sent a postcard from her honeymoon in Grandada with my poem Granada written on the back. 

Donate. 30/30 helps raise awareness and funds for Tupelo Press. For the last fifteen years, Tupelo Press has been publishing and supporting work from a diverse array of poets from around the world. They're innovative and creative and maintain a wonderful community of poets through projects like 30/30. My goal is $350 dollars. That's just a few donations of ten and fifteen dollars. If you choose to donate, I have some perks I'll throw your way.

$1+ -- A handwritten (hope you can read it) postcard!

$15 -- A handwritten poem from the month's work!
$35 - A copy of my chapbook, The Homeland - translations from the German of Katharina Müller.
$50 -- A limited letter-press print of my poem Dog Days from The Michigan Poet
$100 -- A private reading at your home or any venue of your choice