[personal/blog] [writing/literature] 

I think of her as autumn,
whose hair recalls the shades of turning leaves
-but also of the way,
like leaves that fall in autumn's wake,
for her I do the same.

Just an impromptu rhyme that's gotten trapped in my head, in one form or another, over the past day and a half. Does it tell anyone anything?

 [writing/literature] 

Manahawkin,
on the way
to the shore;
sunny days

saw us walkin'
'cross the sand
-spread before
like all those plans.

Twilight talkin'
on the beach
-with our dreams
still within reach;

Manahawkin,
William Cook
Boulevard
makes me look

when I'm drivin'
by that way
can't help wonderin'
what became
-of you

Manahawkin
still remains
a sweet, sweet smile
in the bitter pain.

Manahawkin
was the way
to the seashore
on a sunny day.

My exclusive band of loyal readers may have noticed the absence of "Poetry Friday" recently. This was not an accidental omission; after almost a year of regular poetry posts on Fridays, I've grown a little tired of it, so I decided to only post poetry-related stuff when I was really inspired to do so, instead of on a specific schedule.

In the spirit of randomness, this is an original lyric from the private stash. The geographical reference of the poem will be familiar to certain people who know the Jersey shore areas well. It's something I've been knocking around for a little while now, and I'm probably not finished with it yet, but I felt like sharing something besides politics today.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical]  [stories]  [writing/literature] 

Tattered Coat has thoughts on several political causes and activities, both locally in Philadelphia, as well as nationally. Among these happenings, Matt laments the scaling back of Philadelphia's free library system, which includes not only fewer hours of operation at most branches, but also the eradication of qualified librarians at most branches.

Sure, some people may think anyone with a modicum of intelligence and interpersonal skill can fill a librarian's shoes, but consider the following recollection from my own experience at a local Borders store a couple years back:

I was looking for a copy of Charlotte's Web to give to one of my nieces as a gift. After looking through the sprawling children's section for a few minutes, I decided that it might be better to ask one of the customer assistance folks in that section for a little help.

I approached a fresh-faced young woman who was behind a computer station in the midst the children's material alcove. She was in the 18 to 20 range and had the look of one of those hip youngsters just quaint enough to be employed by a cool bookseller like Borders. Just as I approached, she was accosted by a young man about half her age, who asked her where he could find Around the World in Eighty Days. She asked the boy who wrote the book he was looking for. He didn't seem to be able to push the author's name to the tip of his tongue, so I chimed in the name of Jules Verne.

The book girl looked up at me, apparently surprised that a passing stranger would know such a thing. She then started typing into her computer workstation. A few brief seconds later, she informed the boy that Borders apparently didn't carry that book. Incredulous (not just me, but the inquiring boy as well), I leaned a little over her desk and quickly noticed why she couldn't find what the boy was seeking; she'd entered the words "Jewels Vern" as her search terms. I politely corrected her spelling and she proceeded to find that there were a whole bunch of different titles in stock that had been authored by this mysterious Verne fellow. She then pointed in the direction that the boy would have the most luck finding his book, and she turned to me.

She marveled at how I could know so much about books. Rather than say something to make her feel like a total idiot, I explained that I'd majored in English in college (a lie, but one told to spare her fragile, if naive, psyche). This made perfect sense to her, as she explained that she was only studying sociology. She thanked me for helping with the boy's book, and then she asked if she could help me find something. I gave a soft "no thanks" and went back to searching the children's section myself, not wanting to find out if she'd have similar trouble spelling E.B. White's name.

For days after, I wondered about the sorry state of professional bookselling, that we couldn't find college students familiar with names like Jules Verne to staff the information desks at major bookstores.

As if that wasn't bad enough, just imagine the horror that would have overwhelmed me if this episode had happened at the local library.

This isn't to condescend to anyone out there who would have been just as lost as the girl in the store, because to be honest, I grew up reading a lot of books; it's entirely possible I'd be more familiar with this information for that reason alone. The point isn't whether the typical person knows a lot about books, or even whether or not the typical person should. The point is that the person directing a city's knowledge-hungry youth around the local library should know at least this much.

And as Matt points out, in a city (and state) that sinks hundreds of millions of tax dollars into lavish pro sports complexes we should at least have few million lying around for something as socially redeeming as a decent public library system.

 [writing/literature] [movies] 

"O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman

Okay, this one should be fairly familiar, even for people who haven't seen Dead Poet's Society. It's still a good poem, and if you aren't familiar with it, even better.

Poetry Friday Saturday

[personal/blog]  [writing/literature] 

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

This is the long lost poem I've been searching for. I remember reading this poem in an American Lit class about a dozen years ago. Of course, I promptly forgot both the poem and the author, and I didn't rediscover them until I recalled the poem's theme just a few days ago (which led to a quick Google search).

This short poem serves as a reminder to me of how much more important it is to demonstrate our love by our actions, as opposed to the more popular, far easier practice of merely talking about how much we love our dear ones. I've mentioned this before in tribute to my father, but it bears repeating, as he's always been the kind of man to show his love for others by his actions more than by his words. I think that's why this poem stuck in the back of my mind for all those years.

[writing/literature] 

"Reflection" by Artie Van Why

More than simply writing this week's poetry selection, Artie Van Why also chronicled his experiences as a resident of New York City, and his firsthand experience of the events of September 11, 2001, at his website That Day in September. The poem, like much of what he shares in his story, is incredibly moving, and it serves as a poignant preface to his story, which you can read by clicking on the link for the poem.

[writing/literature] 

"Radio" by Laurel Blossom

[writing/literature] 

"True Love" by Robert Penn Warren

I like this one, another rhyme I've just barely discovered.

For those who never wander that far, I have a short list of poetic links on the smedley drafts home page, among them a link to the American Academy of Poets, where I found this week's poem. I recommend it for those interested in being introduced to a wide scope of poetry and writings about poetry.

[personal/blog]  [writing/literature] 

"I Measure Every Grief I Meet" by Emily Dickinson

I can't claim to have any depth of understanding of this poem. I've had a Dickinson volume in my collection for years, and only after stumbling on this at Poets.org did I even realize that I'd always had access to it but never actually read it in the book.

Having literally only discovered this poem within the last couple hours, I want to say I chose it specifically for the imagery it creates in my mind. I've always noticed people having things about which to be, well, sad. Any time I've ever noticed someone who might have had reason for sadness, I always wondered how it felt. I later learned to compare and contrast the sadness I perceived in other people with the memories or conditions in my own experience that made me saddest. This poem seemed to speak to that, just a little.

I know, not the brightest discourse, but I've always been curious that way -- I've always wanted to understand what other people thought and felt. It's probably as much a liability as anything else, but it does come in handy sometimes. It's probably as good a reason as any for why I've always been fascinated by personal writing, whether it be poetry or weblogs.

[writing/literature] 

"African Children" by Sarah Ruden

I just stumbled across this one, and it upended my original choice for this week's Poetry Friday, which I will, no doubt, dust off for a future Friday's offering. Sarah Ruden seems like an interesting contemporary poet, from my rudimentary research on her. She lives and writes in South Africa, though she's American by birth.

Of course, the feature of the above link that originally drove me to choose it was the audio link located below the poem's text. I always like to hear poems recited by their creators.

 [writing/literature] 

"New Year's Eve" Robert Service

Having gotten such a kick out of the last Robert Service poem I linked to for Poetry Friday, and with the title of this one fitting the day, this was an easy choice -- and another attempt to expose my readers to the work of an excellent American poet.

[personal/blog]  [music] [writing/literature] [sociopolitical] 

"When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls.
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash.
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see..."
-Peter Gabriel

I've been a little numb on the writing side this week. It was supposed to be the ideal week to relax a little, start reading some new books, and maybe write something worth reading.

Then Sunday came. And I've been internally preoccupied ever since.

I did start in on some new reading material I received for Christmas, but I haven't gotten far with it. And the writing end of things has been stifled quite a bit by the oceanic events that have infiltrated the entire blogosphere, including this small corner of it. I don't mean to suggest that an event the magnitude of last Sunday's earthquake-induced tsunami belongs anywhere but on the front burner -- however, I seem to have been saturated to the point that I wish I could write intelligently about something, anything, else. And in the absence of a decent post without tsunami content, I wish I could have written something more profound about it, as Steve did in yesterday's post. At the very least, I'd like to publicly thank my brother-in-law for filling in a bit yesterday.

The quote at the head of this post is from a Peter Gabriel song called "Here Comes the Flood", which I've had in my CD collection for about ten years. It floats back into my head every time I hear news of any kind of water-related tragedy, from the flooding that seems to periodically trouble the Midwestern U.S. to hurricanes in the Caribbean to things like the tsunami that has led to the perpetually rising body count in Southeast Asia. The tone of the song is quiet, slow and sad. I've appreciated the song over the last decade or so, the way that a tragic song could only be appreciated by someone with no realistic frame of reference on the tragedy being described.

I sometimes wonder if there isn't something cheap about my vicarious experience through such a sad song. I have not even the most remote idea what it is to flee the crashing waves. Most of us have no idea of it, as most of us, even this short distance from lower Manhattan, have no clue what horror was experienced by those who died, or even those who narrowly escaped the falling towers.

But sympathy, even as it falls far short of true empathy, is better than callous disregard, is it not? That's the question I've held silently these past few days, as I notice how many people are literally oblivious to the worldwide news from this past weekend. Some of the same people no doubt would have thought of people in the middle east as callous or even hostile to not express sympathy for the U.S. in the wake September 11.

My point is not to draw any blatantly apples-and-oranges comparisons, but to note how we tend to think our tragedies more tragic than those that happen on the other side of the world. Causes aside, the deaths of tens of thousands (close to 70,000 at last count I received) can not be considered anything less than supremely, profoundly, tragic. But many of us here in the U.S. are still oblivious to it.

The rest of us just wish we could be.

A Christmas Carol poem by G.K.Chesterton

Well, it is the day before, and it is a poem... and I do have at least a few visitors who'd appreciate a good Chesterton reference, right?

I just came across this entry at Rishon Rishon, many thanks to Bene Diction for the heads-up. I'd never had much insight into the background of Steven Den Beste's retirement from the legendary essay blog USS Clueless, but the aforementioned Rishon Rishon post casts some informative light on the subject by cataloging some comments from Den Beste himself. This comment collection was an eye-opener for me, and I'm a little bit sadder for having read it, but as someone who was challenged many times by his writing, I have a renewed sense of appreciation for his work.

For anyone who appreciates fine analytical essays who isn't already familiar with the name Steven Den Beste, I'd say you missed out. I would say you missed out, but apparently you haven't yet. As a result of skimming the Rishon Rishon entry I linked at the top of this post, I was prompted to once again visit the old USS Clueless page, where I discovered that Den Beste has made his writings from the site available in a zip file for anyone who's inclined to download them. I have, in fact, just finished downloading the file for myself. I know there are other folks out there who would be inclined to do the same; I'm just trying to make sure they know about it.

Thanks again SDB.

"Life" by Lord Bacon

"Richard Corey" by Edwin Arlington Robinson

-this poem is linked, at least in my memory with another Robinson poem, "Miniver Cheevy" (which I linked to a couple weeks ago). We studied the two poems side by side, with our teacher using "Miniver Cheevy" as a cautionary tale about those who complain too much based on the wrong criteria. This poem was the one about how even those with outwardly glamorous lives can be profoundly sad on the inside.

"The Song of Despair" by Pablo Neruda
(translated by W.S. Merwin)

I am relatively new to Neruda's poetry. I'll confess that the only thing that made me search him out at the local bookstore was the use of some of his lines in a film called The Motorcycle Diaries, which I recently saw, and enjoyed. For some reason, every time I see a foreign language film with subtitles, or for that matter, a foreign language poem translated to English, I wish I could enjoy it in its original language. Reading Neruda's poems makes me want to brush up on my long-since eroded Spanish skills.

"I like the sound of my own voice
I didn't give anyone else a choice..."
-U2

Well, it seems I forgot something when I posted last. The one-year anniversary of this blog (at least the portion that managed to avoid accidental erasure) was on November 28. Someone once said that 90% of new blogs fail within the first year, or was that independent restaurants? I'll just apply it to blogs, since it does seem there are many that don't make it past a certain point -- a point that I'm fairly sure coincides with the blogger losing interest. I suppose it's something like the fate of a new toy. Other bloggers, like my Jayhawk friend from the Ratlands, suffer from having too much real-life obligation I think; or perhaps it's that people like me suffer from an inexplicable knack for finding too much time to write.

In looking around at some of the mainstays of my usual blog rounds, I notice that most of the blogs that seem to persist are those that are about something other than just being a blog. In other words, the medium is not the message. There are many weblogs out there for which the medium is an end to itself, and most of them (I assume) are short-lived. I think people like me (assuming such people exist) keep adding to these online train wrecks we call blogs because, at least in our own minds, we have something to say. I will concede that I have drifted into the realm of absolute drivel on occasion, and I'm sure some might even think I live there. But the point is that people who push on tend to be those for whom a purpose exists, and I would contend that this is true of many other sorts of efforts as well.

For me, the real drug is writing. About what? Doesn't really matter, as long as it's something that seems interesting to me. My first regular reading in the blogosphere was over at the Ratlands, and I have often lamented, whether to myself or to whoever reads this, that I wish he wrote more often. He and I both seem to lament that someone like Steven den Beste isn't still writing -- I always wanted to sound so well-reasoned and articulate, but I write in fits primarily, and I can almost always see the restlessness in it when I'm done. I wonder at times if it's as obvious to other people.

I am a small, small fish in a gigantic pond, and I am quite happy to be so. I think I always imagined this as an out-of-the-way spot on the internet, resigned to reaching a handful of occasional passersby. On the other hand, I have been pleasantly surprised to realize my traffic is a bit heavier than I ever thought it would be. I guess there's something to be said for longevity, if one year is actually any kind of benchmark.

So, to wrap up the gratuity of this late anniversary post, I humbly thank those who have linked to me, those who have stopped in, and anyone who's graced me with feedback over the past year.

Hope you'll keep coming back.

"Miniver Cheevy" by Edwin Arlington Robinson

-a poem that I first studied in junior high or high school, about how we sometimes obsess over and over-romanticize the good old days.

Writer's block and the best policy

It seems the only words I've been able to write the last couple days have been academically motivated.

I actually have many topics on which to opine right now, but nothing I try to put down, on the screen or on paper, is coming out the way I'd like. It's starting to bug me a little. And then there's this:

Someone recently told me s/he didn't want to tell me something because I'm too sensitive, and s/he didn't think I could handle it. Or maybe it was more that s/he didn't feel capable of handling my response to what needed to be said. It's the second time recently (in the past week) that someone has tried to explain not saying something that should have been said; one instance was personal, one was professional, and in both instances, I've been much more annoyed by people not giving me the truth than by learning of the truth they tried to withhold. The personal instance is more troubling than the professional one, if only because I'd like to thing people I let into my inner circle would be more trusting than that.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but it seems to be a recurring theme, and it always irritates me that people underestimate me in this way. I actually could handle the truth, if only somebody was willing to offer it.

"The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service

This one is newly discovered to me, but I like it a lot. It reads well as a sort of story, which is fitting, since that's exactly what it's telling.

Burning

This fire is more than able
to put me in my place,
sheltered by the angel
dancing in the flames.
This closure isn't stable;
this answer isn't straight,
as fires of burning hazel
are spitting in my face.

And I would play the savior
if you asked me to;
I'd become a martyr
just like lovers do;
I won't beg compassion
that I can't deserve;
I won't feign contrition
just to join the herd.

These masquerading fables
betray our better selves,
tempting bitter angels
to leave us in our hell.
These times of lies and labels
keep begging me to stray,
but fires of burning hazel
are standing in the way.

---

This is my first original Poetry Friday offering since mid-August. It was added to the "about a girl" page of the poetry index earlier this week, and the timing of placing it here today has to do with making sure a certain someone sees it without having to look too strenuously.

Poetry writing has been painfully slow for me lately, and this one is the first addition to the index in a couple months (several others have been written, re-written, and deleted or balled up and thrown in the trash). A while back I described a certain pair of uniquely-colored eyes as containing "fires of burning hazel" and then I told the same person that I would really like to write a poem using that line. Well, the first few dozen drafts were strained attempts at something more patently romantic, but what I ended up with was this rhyme, which to me, is actually more romantic than the first many incarnations of it were. I guess it's just a little poem about the pieces in our lives that provide comfort, stability and motivation in a world that does so much to drain us of those things -- which doesn't necessarily gush romance for most people. So consider it more along the lines of "Dover Beach", if that helps.

(an impromptu story)

I stepped up to the counter, 9:15 on a Saturday night. Not having eaten since early that morning, I was unusually hungry, and I probably should have been somewhere other than the local McDonald's with the kind of hunger I was feeling. But I was in a little bit of a hurry, with less than a half-hour until I was supposed to meet a couple friends at the local cineplex.
The girl behind the register was unusually pleasant. At least that's what I thought on my first glance, so I greeted her smile with as much of a pleasant tone as I could find. I ordered my food, she recited the cash total to me, after which I handed her a ten. She informed me that she was out of fives, but that she happened to have a two dollar bill, in case I didn't want all singles for my change. I told her that was fine. Then she gave me my change and my order, and I sat down to eat for about ten minutes.

While I was finishing my food, she made her rounds in the dining area, wiping off table tops. She was at the table next to mine and she asked how I was. I said, "Fine, and you?"

"I'm good. What would bring you to a fast food restaurant alone on a Saturday night -- if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm on my way to meet some friends, but I'm starving a little too, so here I am."

"Oh, what are you gonna' do with your friends?" she asked.

"We're gonna' see a movie," I answered.

"Which one?" At this point she may have sensed herself intruding a little too much, and she continued by disclaiming her curiosity, "Oh, you know what? You don't have to tell me your whole life's story -- I didn't mean to pry..."

"No, it's okay," I responded, because it really was okay with me if she wanted to keep talking. I was actually enjoying the attention, and to be honest, she was very attractive and I had no personal reason not to flirt with her a little bit. I went on, "We'll probably see some stupid comedy, you know, the kind that's best enjoyed with people whose company you can enjoy even if the movie sucks."

At this point, I noticed her name tag, and unsure how to pronounce the name, I asked, "Your name, U-M-E -- how do you say it?"

"Oh, just say 'you' and 'may' together quickly, and you'll pretty much have it nailed," she explained.

To confirm her pronunciation lesson, I repeated it for her,"So it's 'you-may', right?"

"Exactly," she smiled back. "What's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Bill," and almost unconsciously, this response was followed by my outstretched hand, which she promptly shook.

"Well, Bill, it's really nice to meet you, but I should probably get back to real work before my boss thinks I'm harassing patrons."

"Okay. It was nice to meet you."

Then she paused and turned back to me before walking away, "Do you want my number?"

I was slightly surprised at this question, but extremely pleased also, "Um, sure..."

"Here, I've got a pen," she pulled one of those blue and white BIC's with the four different ink colors from behind her ear (I hadn't noticed it before that point, probably because it had been obscured by her long, dark hair. "Do you have a piece of paper? A receipt or something?"

I didn't have one, of course, and before I could put even that much into words, she said, "You still have that paper money from the change I gave you. How about the two dollar bill? That way you'll be less likely to accidentally spend it." She winked as she said the word "accidentally", and she went on, "Besides, I always see phone numbers on money, especially working at a cash register, but I've never actually written my phone number on money before -- so this could be a first for me." She said this smiling, as she reached her hand out, presumably for some paper money on which to write.

I fumbled into my wallet for the same worn two dollar bill she'd given me earlier. I handed it to her, she took it and scrawled her name and phone number on it, folded it, handed it back to me, and smiled. Then she walked away.

I left the restaurant, feeling quite full of myself, having extracted a beautiful girl's phone number without any forward effort on my part, and I went to meet my friends at the theater. The movie, as I had half suspected, was bad, the company was good, and all night, I couldn't shake thoughts of my encounter with the inexplicably pleasant girl whose number graced the two dollar bill in my wallet.

I managed to wait all of a day and a half before calling that number, at which point I was somewhat relieved that she actually answered the phone. Upon realizing who was calling, she expressed mock anger that I didn't call her sooner, closely followed by a brief burst of laughter.

We spent a good bit of time together over the next few months. During that time I learned a lot about her, like the fact that she wasn't a local girl, but rather a college student who'd be going home at the end of the current semester. Knowing this probably kept me from enjoying her company as much as I might have, but still, I enjoyed the time immensely.

She explained that "Ume" wasn't her real name, but it was what people called her. She tried to explain the meaning of the name to me. Apparently it was a somewhat informal name, and of foreign origin to boot, so the explanation was imprecise to a certain extent. As best I can recall, it meant that she was like a pleasant dream that was easy to forget -- or something like that. The pleasant dream part made perfect sense, though I remember wondering how she could be thought of as forgettable in any way.

In the time since, though, I've noted to myself how I still remember her with extreme fondness, but I do find it harder to remember details about her -- whether it be her face, her playful smirk, the way her eyes made a modest squint whenever her expression turned to smiling or laughter.

And maybe this gradual amnesia regarding the details has been helped by the fact that I have no photographic evidence whatsoever that she was ever here; that was the one strange piece of the whole experience to me, that she didn't like having her picture taken. Whenever I asked her about this, she expressed such displeasure with her own appearance that I was always left dumbfounded. I wondered exactly how she could have maintained such a positive persona while having such a poor view of herself. I never saw whatever it was that made her feel this way about herself, but for the most part, if I avoided talking about her appearance, she seemed able to ignore the topic as well. And aside from that, I rarely found her to be anything less than infectiously spirited.

But it's been so long now since I've seen her or heard her voice, I have to confess that she has come to perfectly fit what she told me about her name.

And from that reverie I shift back to reality, where I find myself pulling up to a deserted turnpike toll booth at about three in the morning. The toll is $1.75, and I fumble through my wallet to find the cash for the toll.

"How you doin' tonight, champ?" The collector greets me in gruff but friendly voice.

"Fine, and you?" I'm tired, but I extend the banter as I hand him the ticket and the cash.

"Peachy -- hey, a two dollar bill! I haven't seen one o' these in a while. And look -- somebody wrote a name and number on it. I should call, maybe she's cute..."

"She is," I respond, "but she doesn't live there anymore."

"Oh, ain't that a shame. Well, have yourself a good night there."

"You too," I say as I drive away, leaving behind the last piece of physical evidence of a pleasant, but fading dream.

"Mentor" by Timothy Murphy

"A politician next door swore he'd set the Washington Arena on fire;
Thinks he'll gladiate them, but they're gonna make him a liar.
He's a good ol' boy who was born and raised in the buckle o' the Bible Belt
Just remember when you step into your voting booth
He'll never lie -- he'll just embellish the truth..."
-Steve Taylor

I haven't published in a few days now, and I even forgot to do a Poetry Friday post. Many apologies to anyone who was waiting for new additions, but I have been extremely busy with a host of responsibilities, ranging from work to school to real life (I'm relieved to report I still have a real life).

The above quote comes from a song by one of my favorite Christian recording artists (which accounted for a significant chunk of my music collection when I was a teenager). As I dwell on concepts like co-opted Christianity and other entire demographics of society that willingly surrender their votes to one party line or the other, lines like the ones quoted above tend to float freely through my head. But I'm tired of politics for the time being, so that's all I'll write about that for now...

"...But every writer knows we have to write to find out
We have to write to discover what wants to happen
We have to write to know where the story needs to go
We have to write to learn why we are here
We have to write to find we are not alone..."

"Personal Work" by Linford Detweiler

I thought this one felt right for today, in its own winding, rhythmic way. The quotation is just a brief excerpt, but you can click the link to read the whole poem.

"The Politician" by Jan Crest

-kind of fits my sentiments lately.

"Everybody is Sick of Love" by Linford Detweiler

I like this one because it's short, sweet, and riding the fence between hope and despair; but what do you think?

I don't know where this piece of storytelling fits in, but I observed the following scene on the way to work today, and it has stayed with me since.

I was sitting in traffic on a local roadway, with traffic being a little more congested than normal. As my fellow travelers and I waited in line at an intersection, I heard a siren's wail, followed shortly thereafter by a local police SUV passing us on the median strip just to our left. As we started moving again, I prepared to make my right turn at the intersection, which is when I saw it.

There were two cars juxtaposed in the right lane of the road onto which I was turning. Both cars were compact to sub-compact. One was a late model Chevy Cavalier, which had come to rest up against a concrete wall lining a roadside embankment. The other car was a Hyundai Accent (with the markings of a local auto parts delivery warehouse) sitting right in the middle of the lane. Both cars had significant front-end damage (which is to say neither car had much of its front-end left) and apparent airbag deployment.

As I was waiting to be waved around the scene by an officer, I then noticed a man lying on the ground next to the Hyundai. He was an older man (appearing to be in his sixties), and he was surrounded by two paramedics who appeared to be administering CPR.

I was thinking about this scene as I waited in traffic. The auto parts company that had its markings on the car was located less than a quarter mile up the road, and these companies are known to employ retirees. As I saw the man lying on the ground, receiving CPR, I wondered if, as he had left his home that day to go to work, this scene was even a possibility in his mind. If he had pulled out of the warehouse parking lot with even a hint that this could be in his immediate future.

How many people would even think about that possibility? Not me, at least not until I caught this scene as I waited in traffic.

The policeman waved me on after a couple minutes, and I said a short prayer as the car started rolling again -- just thinking of that man on the ground, any loved ones he might have, anyone else who'd been injured in the collision, and all of us who meander through our daily lives unaware and unappreciative of the grace that shields us from these tragedies.

"Easy reading is damned hard writing."
-Nathaniel West

Okay, so I was sifting through Google keywords used to access my little blog here, and I saw "the smedley log" among the keywords used, a regular thing, really, and there's no reason someone wouldn't use the title of a blog to find it on Google. But this time I decided to Google "the smedley log", as some visitors had done, just to see what the results of that search actually are.

Another unsurprising result is that several of the results are linked to this blog, but I came across a blog I didn't even know had linked to me. It's called hardscrabble, and it's written by a Computer Sciences graduate student in Chicago named Azzari Jarrett. Not only had she linked to me in one of her posts, but it was three months ago! Even more interesting is the fact that she was referencing a tsl entry from ten months ago, so I wondered if she had found it by virtue of reading this blog on any kind of regular basis, or if she had googled her subject in order to find me. (The Subject of her post and mine was the possible relationship between reality TV and blogging.) I may never know, but this brings me, in my usual winding way, to another observation.

I seem to have gotten a lot of feedback, and sometimes blog mention, from bloggers who are grad students. When I say a lot, I don't mean in the thousands, or even the hundreds, but safely in the dozens. And I want to say that I find that both flattering and intimidating. Actually, the mere thought of my brother-in-law (a graduated grad student himself) reading this sometimes frightens me, not only because I think he knows a lot more than I do about many things, but also because he's in a position to call me on the carpet for my mistakes in a way that most readers will never be. And I think, not knowing all their educational backgrounds, that most of my responsive readers are a pretty clever bunch of people. Therefore I tend to think that most of them will see the holes in my ideas and arguments.

And, to be clear, I don't talk about grad students here because I think they are inherently smarter than others, like myself, who aren't, and maybe never will be, at that academic level. I've met enough "uneducated" folk to know much better than that. Although I would like to think the "grad student observation" I'm making underscores the intelligence level of my average reader, and, quite possibly at the same time, reveals my general elitist attitude. (But hopefully not that last part.)

And speaking of the relative intelligence of my readers, a readability report I got from Readability.info showed that my readability scores were fairly high, meaning the education level required to make sense of my writing is fairly high by conventional standards; something about sentences being long (me? long sentences?) and syllables per word, I think... but apparently you should pat yourself on the back if you get past the first two or three sentences of most of these entries. Incidentally, I'm aware that reading difficulty often reflects more negatively on the writer than on the reader, as good writers usually strive to be understood (see lead-in quote).

The other part of this is that I've noticed a ton of blogs by graduate students. One of the more obvious examples from my list of links is my inquisitive Catholic friend at Ales Rarus , and there are many others out there, including some who are law students -- which I honestly don't get.

I mean grad school is hard enough, but as someone who has spent time mulling the prospect of law school, I've heard some pretty gruesome stories about how little time is left for leisure. I recently went back to school myself and I'm nowhere near that level of difficulty, and if pecking away on a computer wasn't one of my favorite methods of winding down before bed, I don't think I could do much, if any, blogging at all.

Upon skimming Azzari's sidebar, I came across PhD Weblogs, a "non-profit initiative to bring together PhD students' weblogs from all around the world." I'm trying not to get too jealous -- some people just have a gift, I guess.

"The Poet" by Sharon Brogan

This edition of Poetry Friday features an online poet by the name of Sharon Brogan. This poem appears on her site, Oratory, along with many others. Many kind thanks to Sharon for allowing me to reprint her work below.

The Poet

For the poet, every hello contains
its goodbye; every sunlit rose
its shadow; and death stalks
everything. Always the heron
watching the silvery fish. Always
the hawk. Even in that moment
she holds her lover's heaviness
in the palm of her hand, feels
herself liquify – even then,
she knows it will end.

I usually leave poems to speak for themselves on Fridays (as well as other days), but I wanted to share a little about why I like this poem.
I think the above verse speaks to a common trait of people who try to express themselves artistically: the idea that most things we appreciate are finite or delicate in nature, and that is part of what makes them noteworthy, at least in my

I don't know if any great poetry scholars share my thoughts on this, though I'm sure my thoughts are completely unoriginal. I tend to believe one of the domains of poetry (and art in general) to highlight things we should appreciate, whether they be feelings, people, events or other random things. So often, we as people overlook the gifts we have, the beauty that's all around us, the people we love -- we tend to take so much for granted.

I can say, from my own experience, that the desire to write things down, particularly in verse, is almost always joined at the hip with memories of things I've taken for granted but wish I hadn't. I guess that could be considered a melancholy motivation, but it benefits me in that I tend to see things as more finite, more fleeting, than I did when I was younger. In some ways it's an unnatural paradigm; most people would rather not dwell on the temporal nature of things they treasure, but in avoiding this notion , it seems many folks forget how special these things really are.

And there are probably more than a couple people out there who find it depressing to be reminded of the temporal nature of their cherished things, but I would disagree. I think it can be completely invigorating to remain aware of life's fleeting nature and always remember to live appreciatively. I have no real idea if that's what Sharon Brogan was reaching for with "The Poet", but it's what struck me almost immediately after reading it.

If you'd like to comment on what you think of the poem, feel free to click the title/author link to visit Sharon's site and leave you thoughts with her. (If you just want to tell me how crazy the last several paragraphs sound to you, you can leave that comment right here.)

I have just finished (I think) with a few more design changes on the drafts section; I ran into a few errors (due to my haste), but have tried to ensure that no glaring deficiencies remain.

As per some readers' suggestions, I have lightened it up a bit and given each page a right sidebar that will allow people to navigate freely between all pages on the smedley drafts. Now the only page from which you can't directly navigate to any other page is this one, but I hope some of you will wander over to the drafts and check out the new style anyway.

I didn't expect to be deterred from the log for almost three days, but here I am, having slacked off this whole time...

Actually, I had my first two papers due over this past weekend, and I was a little behind on starting them, thanks to Labor Day and all the festivities. I swore to myself that I wouldn't let blogging get in the way of schoolwork, and that oath may keep me from posting as often as I normally would, but I'll still be here quite often.

As for the last post, I'm appreciative of the flow of ideas from a small handful of readers, through both email and comments. I was reminded of (if not introduced to) a few ideas I wouldn't have thought of on my own regarding terrorism, so it's good to not be stranded on this island alone.

Of course, I didn't set out to provoke too much thought with Saturday's memorial post, but now I'm thinking of expanding on some of those things I purposely neglected to mention on Saturday -- it's become apparent that I wouldn't be alone in some of my thoughts. But it remains to be seen if I'll have the ambition write that expansion post.

I must've seen a hundred bloggers posting about Gmail invites in the past few months -- well, maybe not a hundred, but I have seen a lot.

I've got an idea, since I'm now starting to realize that no matter how many invites I distribute, they just keep giving me more; at least that's how it seems to be working.

So, I've got an idea:

I'd be perfectly willing to exchange invites to readers who offer links to poems that I might use in future installments of Poetry Friday. Either email or comment with a link to a good poem I haven't yet used, or offer something original (for the poets out there). If I decide your suggestion is one I'd like to use, I'll send you an invite. If I don't send you an invite, it either means I don't like your idea, or I've simply run out of invites (as improbably as that may seem), though I will attempt to respond, even in such cases.

And for those of you out there who already have Gmail accounts, perhaps you'd like to offer poetic suggestions out of the kindness of your hearts? Or perhaps there's something else I could offer -- though I'm not sure what.

But I would appreciate decent suggestions, and I'm willing to pay with invites...

"The Tiger" by William Blake

I came across this poem early in my education in poetry, probably more than twenty years ago -- I can't quite recall. I was reminded of it a year or so ago when I saw a film called The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, in which this particular Blake rhyme was referenced. I know that those with serious exposure to poetry (and some without) are fairly familiar with this verse, but I didn't want to assume everyone has read it. Or perhaps, as in my case, other readers might simply be reminded of it.

In a parallel mention, I have discovered a new weblog for good original poetry; it's called Watermark. Well at least it's new to me. I may even add it to the eclectics eventually. There's a related site called Oratory, but it's in the moving process right about now, so the link will not (as of yet) deliver you to any poetry -- apparently that will be remedied within a week or so.

"...and you wanna ask God about things like cancer,
but you don't think that you'll get much of an answer."
-Bill Mallonee

I recently came across what I consider to be a great compliment in a post from Cziltang, whose weblog played a part in inspiring my blog beginnings:

"...The Smedley Log is one of the few bastions of civilized discourse I've found on the web. The author seems like a genuinely nice guy. I disagree with a significant chunk of his political commentary, but I read him regularly because his opinions are grounded in his real-world experience, he asks questions that I don't always have easy answers to, he is brave enough to offer suggestions as to what might be done (rather than just whine about what "they" are doing wrong), and it is all done without name-calling, mud-slinging or any significant rancor..."

There is something strangely gratifying about being appreciated by readers who don't necessarily agree with you. I was a little slow to post the above text, because I generally don't like to come off as patting myself on the back, but there is a point to this mention; it's about a train of thought that really got going in my head when I was directed (by Ales Rarus) to a post entitled "Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask."

Apparently according to Simon (or maybe I should hope he's being facetious), being reasonable isn't a great way to get noticed in the blogosphere, nor is being polite. Among his list of blogging tips are the following:

"36. Logic and reason are for the weak. Knee-jerk and off-the-cuff reactions are for the blogger.
30. Just like in life, extremism beats moderation and emotion beats logic. If you want reasoned discourse prepare to dwell in oblivion. If you want invective and ill-considered responses, watch the hits come in."

I have, as usual in my life, ambled down the road less traveled, and in so doing, I suppose I may have mired myself in blog oblivion.

And do you know what? I like it that way.

Call me a niche blogger. I don't want to be right all the time, nor do I want to be the most controversial voice on the internet. All I can hope for is to write something (once in a while at least) that makes somebody think a little. I've no desire to play the part of one of those pundits on cable news shows who engage in nightly talking points duels. To steal a thought from Steven Den Beste's "unintentional manifesto", I'd rather readers know why they agree or disagree with me than to just have readers agree with me. And sometimes, I'd like to leave a few folks scratching their heads a little. It's good once in while to struggle with the more difficult questions in life, ones where the answers don't seem so readily available.

Those are the types of the blogs that spawned in me the initial urge to to start burdening the blogosphere with my many opinions, and so, whether or not my strategy results in legions of loyal fans, I think I've held fairly close to my original ideal -- and that fills me with a certain sense of satisfaction.

It's either that, or somewhere deep inside I really believe that logic and reason will eventually overcome emotion and extremism. Yes, I can hear the snickering already.

"An Argument" by Thomas Moore

This is one I wouldn't have normally thought to choose, except that a member of the online community of Stumblers chose to suggest it to me. I am not averse, by the way, to taking suggestions from others as it pertains to my Poetry Friday links, including if any readers have original rhymes to suggest. Thank you to the Strangest Guy for suggesting this week's choice.

"Absence" by William Shakespeare

-A late summer sonnet from the bard

"Having it Out with Melancholy" by Jane Kenyon

"If many remedies are prescribed for an illness,
you may be certain that the illness has no cure."
-Chekhov

the previous

i was an innocent traveling on,
watching the scenery, stumbling upon
myst'ries and secrets all scrawled in a book,
almost revealing, but i never looked.

all this time we remained unaware
with each generation is more weight to bear.

but i was a young man and ignored the call;
i had the pride that remained from the fall,
living a life so oblivious:
that mine's the result of each previous...

still, so much time's been thrown away,
trying to pretend that we've not gone astray,

but

this is my history, here with the ghosts,
moving through wet grass and grave marker stones.
whose are the remains left under my feet?
-souls who have gone now, their maker to meet.

---

Usually on Fridays I link to some poem by a writer of greater literary significance. This week, I decided instead to share the above poem, which came to me as a reflection of a trip I took to visit some ancestral sites, one of which was a hillside cemetery where some of my family's forebears were laid to rest. (One may notice that I sometimes lose interest in capitalization, which believe it or not, has nothing to do with any influence from e.e. cummings -- one of the few significant American poets to whom I never paid much attention. Which is not a judgment on his work; I just never spent much time on it.)

"Mr. Grumpledump's Song" by Shel Silverstein

A lovely friend of mine and I had a short discussion last night about whining, so naturally, I came home to look up the right poem for the topic -- thank God this one was posted online, and hopefully she'll appreciate it.

Incidentally, for those with significantly faster connections than mine and the desire to watch them (or have your kids watch them?), there are four animated poems from Shel Silverstein available for online viewing at Noggin.

For better or worse, I posted two new poems, which serve as the initiation for the newest page of poetry, titled "Ways to Fall" -- or perhaps just page six, for those keeping count.

It's a little bit of a departure for me (in a couple ways), so I apologize in advance if the experimental nature of the two new rhymes is that obvious.

As always, comments are welcome, by email, guestbook or otherwise. Thanks for reading.

As a result of my continual problems with Blogstreet (they have been fairly consistently down for the past couple days), I have decided to attempt to solve my RSS difficulty another way. I am now trying out an RSS feed generator known as List Garden. While I have not received any feedback on their tool from anyone I know or trust, I sincerely hope this works. (Anyone having firsthand info on this program can feel free to offer it, good or bad.) Assuming I do stay with this new tool, readers who had subscribed to the old RSS feed will hopefully update to the new feed address. I'm optimistic, as the new feed will be hosted on the ATT.net server that also hosts this site (and I have not noticed any significant downtime on it yet).

And in other news, I was about to publish a new poem for the Drafts index (my August addition), but I've decided to hold onto it for a couple more days, just in case I think better of it later. If I don't chicken out, it will be there by the end of the week, I think...

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou

"I Wish In The City Of Your Heart" by Robley Wilson

"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."
-James A. Baldwin

I've always enjoyed a good story. I have stumbled, many times, upon the truth when I was simply looking to be entertained. When I was younger, somewhere in my early teen years, I found the book I have mentioned more than once over the past few weeks, a book called Remembered Days. When I first began reading portions of it, I didn't realized for some time that the book was about my own roots; I'm not even sure I knew that it was non-fiction. That was a time in my life when I looked for many different things to read (-a habit that has, unfortunately withered a little over the years).

I became fascinated by several poems/meditations in that book by a woman I later came to realize was my great-great-aunt Mary Agnes (someone I never met, as she passed on long before my time began). These writings were as formative to my early writing inclination as were the works of Walt Whitman, and yes, even Shel Silverstein.

Fast forward almost fifteen years -- It was Christmas in the late nineties, and my father pulled out a scraggly, handmade journal that was kept by my great-great-grandfather in the mid-nineteenth century. It contained different types of writing, from personal accounts of his days to a few drafts of poetry. I wondered, as I read one poem, if Mr. Henry White had been influenced by Whitman's earlier works, much like they had always inspired me.

At this point in my still young life, I had already scribbled in the better part of a dozen journals. As I read the handwritten thoughts of my ancestor, it occurred to me that this particular journal, with its amateur hand-stitched binding, had weathered a century-and-a-half, to be met by my eyes. I pondered for days after how I felt about the chances of having my own scrawled words read by my great-great-grandchildren. I wondered if, like me, he had written in many other journals as well. I wondered if he ever conceived of his words being read 150 years later.

I will confess these thoughts frightened me a little. My private prose was not nearly as elegant, nor was my penmanship form remotely as well-crafted as his. I probably didn't write more than a couple journal entries over the month the followed that discovery. But now I can think of it sometimes, the possibility that my descendants might stumble across my private journalism, and I hope maybe they'll be able to learn something about history that the school books will not be able to offer them -- gain a perspective that will give them the kind of value that I gleaned from the private diary of Henry White, as well as the published accounts in Remembered Days.

I have to admit I now relish the idea. Is it the desire for immortality, or is it just the need to try to connect with people I'll never meet? Is it the same reason I started journalizing online last year via this weblog? I don't know, but the thought of communicating, of perhaps offering something uniquely useful to someone who might not find it elsewhere, definitely appeals to me.

"My November Guest" by Robert Frost

"The Grammar Lesson" by Steve Kowit

Ahh. Back just in time to suggest another cool poem most people probably won't bother to read... I guess grammar's not that popular in the internet culture anyway.

I just decided to post another little poem, and I'd be pleased as punch if anyone decides to read it, but be forewarned that it is somewhat gloomy, though I suppose that the style I chose for it leaves it fairly sanitized of sentiment. Which, I guess, is what I probably would have hoped for, had I had any actual hopes when I started scribbling it a while ago (reminding me of the quote from Robert Frost that is currently headlining the Drafts index page). To get a fresher view of the new rhyme, you may want to read it (I promise it's short) prior to reading the explanation that will appear once you click
It is about a first-time experience I had a couple years ago, when I accompanied my father to the vet to have one of our dogs put down. It's easily one of the most profoundly sad experiences I have ever been privy to.

Up to that point, I had never witnessed the moment when life physically leaves a living creature, and I was stunned at how suddenly hollow a set of eyes could become. I could have sworn that I was seeing it happen, though from a realistic perspective (which I seldom prefer), I understood that the numb expression in our dearly departed canine's eyes probably had much more to do with the overwhelming dose of anesthetic that had been injected than with any metaphysical phenomenon I fleetingly believed I was observing.

I also remember knowing that in our family, my father had often been saddled with the hard responsibility of seeing off sick pets in this premeditated way, and I recall deciding to take off a day of work just so he wouldn't have to do that alone again. Looking back, now knowing how the experience made me feel (assuming my father's inner reaction was even remotely similar), I'm glad he didn't have to be the only one there.

Having written all this, I now wish I had incorporated some of these other thoughts into the poem, but it's most likely better that I didn't, as I do believe short, bittersweet and bordering on sterile are a better combination than overwrought and mind-numbing -- something I fear this post is rapidly approaching. Thanks, as always, for reading.

"On Turning Ten" by Billy Collins

(Perfect birthday poem)

I figured since I mentioned it before and I'm about to mention it in passing once more, I should give some sort of plug for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It's a veritable classic, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet.

"Otherwise" by Jane Kenyon

This is one of several poems that hit me as I was skimming through Poetry 180: a Turning Back to Poetry, the Billy Collins-edited anthology I mentioned in yesterday's post. I mention this because most of the poems I refer to on Fridays here are poems I've known for years, but this is brand new -- at least to me. Simple, but profound.

I recently set about trying to broaden my literary experience. It's probably accurate to say that the two toughest books I've actually read cover-to-cover have been Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the The Holy Bible. Both very popular books, and both often misunderstood. My depth of understanding of both volumes could be enhanced, but I believe I've come to a suitable level of comprehension of both.

I am not as adept, or perhaps, patient with reading long works as some people are, though I have forced myself to complete the reading of a few books since I learned to read many years ago. I have always been mildly jealous of people I know who seem to be able to plow right through long novels in fairly short intervals. This group of people comprises most of the people I know well, pretty much my entire family, several friends, etc.

But I get sidetracked sometimes, wrapped up in little concepts that hit me along the way. I recently read a piece on the anniversary of Blooms Day, the fictional day recounted in James Joyce's Ulysses. The article I was reading noted how Joyce seemed to revel in writing about what he saw as epiphanies, the little moments when individuals come to a greater understanding of things. To many people these moments go by unnoticed, and that, the author of the article suggested, was why many people can't seem to finish Joyce's literary products.

Without knowing if this assertion was true or not, I was tickled by the thought that an author's work might be driven by somewhat similar moments to those that often keep me from reading longer works of literature to the end. (And I fully allow that my supposition here suggests some kind of intellectual comparison between my short attention span and the inspiration behind one of the greatest works in English language literature. I mean no such elevation of my personal demons, so if the past paragraph leaves that impression, please ignore it.)

So, in a conscious effort to broaden my literary base, I went to the nearest bookseller to try to secure a copy of Joyce's famous novel, only to find they didn't stock it. So I went to the next nearest bookseller, and was dismayed to find the same result. I am now resigned to ordering it online, as that rarely fails me. But in the course of my pilgrimage, my pursuit of this great book, I did happen upon copies of Finnegan's Wake, and The Dubliners, as well as a copy of The Portable James Joyce.
The first, while a definite classic, and more immediately available than any physical copy of Ulysses I could locate, was just too long, and I feared I might waste all my reading energy getting through it, leaving me incapable of moving on to my initially targeted book when done with the first.

The second book seemed infinitely more suited to fill a few weeks time (at most) while waiting for Ulysses to arrive.

Then I happened upon the third book, which contained the complete text of the second book, along with several other of Joyce's products (excerpted and in whole), and was only three dollars more than the second book.

So I walked out of that particular bookstore with The Portable James Joyce (and a book called Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, which has nothing to do with this story, for those still reading).

Anyway, after all that searching in physical stores for a copy of Ulysses, and then resigning myself to going over to Amazon to order it, I stumbled upon the entire text over at The Literature Network, during the simplest of web searches on the word "Ulysses." I guess I'm not really one to invest that much time in staring at a computer screen (and I'm definitely not going to print it all out), but go figure.

Well, I suppose it'll be good to have a copy anyway.

Moore Film Title Angers Author

I came across the above link while trudging through the Drudge Report site a few minutes ago, and I thought is was interesting. As a longtime fan of Ray Bradbury, I have mixed feelings.

One reason is that I do think Michael Moore's choice of movie title is absolutely intended to help him feed off the concept of Bradbury's classic story, but as far as I know copyright protection does not extend to titles. That's something we learned early on in journalism courses, as we covered the ever-important concept of plagiarism.

Now, I'm not entirely sure how this plays out when / if the main concept of a title is used specifically to capitalize on the original author's concept -- so there might be a violation in this case, though it may not be a copyright issue, so much as an issue of intellectual property, an area where I have very little knowledge.

The article mentions that Bradbury, as I would have suspected, is a registered independent, so it's hard to tell if Bradbury's opposition to Moore's title is politically rooted. Still, to think of how many authors, film-makers and other various creative minds have borrowed similar concepts, I have a hard time seeing that Moore is violating any accepted standard by using the word "Fahrenheit" in his film title.

Granted, Moore's assertion that his title symbolizes the "temperature at which freedom burns" is hardly analogous, but nobody ever said a title had to make sense.

B's poetry

"Writers write for themselves and not for their readers and ...
art has nothing to do with communication between person and person,
only with communication between different parts of a person's mind."
-Rebecca West

I came across an interesting website while surfing the website promotion page provided for members of my ISP. It's the poetry website of a thirteen-year-old girl, and she's quite skilled with words.

I guess I find such a thing interesting for at least one personal reason: I started writing poetry around the same age. I suppose it has to do with the fact that it's the same age when you start to realize you're not really a child anymore. For me, this realization carried a lot of confusion, and writing (mostly in verse) furnished me with the capacity to begin to make sense of my confusion. Only some of my confusion was internally-based, as I also started to wonder about more worldly issues, things like fairness, or the lack thereof, in the world at large.

I have yet to make a living as a writer; I actually haven't even seriously attempted to, but writing has served me well, if only as a way to communicate with myself, and sometimes with other people, too -- on a really good effort, I might accomplish both simultaneously.

"The Grave of Keats" by Oscar Wilde

The following essay was written by Mary Agnes Taylor (married name), a distant aunt from my paternal grandmother's family. It appears in a book called Remembered Days, written by Elizabeth Brett White (© 1966, James Harry White) about the history of the White family of Yorktown, New York. The piece that you'll read if you choose to read on was written by Mary Agnes shortly after the passing of her husband of over fifty years. It represents her imaginings of what heaven is like.
1 a.m., April 25, 1945

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him." -1 Cor. 2:9

I know it will all be wonderful. We could not know what it will be like, because it will not be like anything we have known, so our language cannot express it. We have been given suggestions… "Home" … "Light" "No sorrow" "We shall be satisfied, because we shall see Him as He is." "Not through a glass darkly, but then face to face." But I have longed to know of companionship with my dear ones. What can it be like? Can I feel and see and hear those spiritual bodies? … But memory brings me to the thrill I have felt as our voices have united in song. The harmony of sound, made not by one beautiful note, but by the blending of our tones making a melody that seemed to lift our spirits in ecstasy. Perhaps the meeting of our spirits will be like that. I think I would be satisfied to have it so.

I remember, too, walking in the springtime, when the air was filled with fragrance. It was not merely the breath of one kind of flower that the breezes brought to me, but the mingling of several, coming and going, faint, delicate, constantly changing, always so lovely that I involuntarily reached out my arms to try to caress the invisible Something that spoke to my soul. Perhaps our spirits will mingle in some such beautiful way. I think I would be satisfied to have it so.

I have seen color, that wondrous thing -- in sunset clouds, in rainbows, in the petals of flowers, in all nature. Not just one color. It is almost never one alone. It is the blending of several that God uses in his paintings, making beauty so great that we feel that it is beyond our comprehension and our souls yearn to break earthly bonds and be free. Perhaps our spirits will blend as sounds and colors do, until we, like them, shall merge in beauty. I think I would be satisfied to have it so.

And now I think I can sleep.

-Mary Agnes Taylor

"When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d" by Walt Whitman

I suppose this poem will have been brought up at least once or twice over these last few days -- a piece written about our earliest Republican President, and now it comes to mind as a nation marks the passing of one of our most recent Republican Presidents. Though some would say they were worlds apart, it might be said that the Republican parties of then and of now are also worlds apart.

"Stratosphere" is the most recent draft addition. Please make it feel welcome...

"in memory as well
of the living dead, who are neither too dead nor too alive
but nonetheless are
living
for want of something better."

-Great sequence of words -- read a longer excerpt at this link:
"Wail of the Arab Beggars of the Casbah" by Ishmael Ait Djafer

I have decided, after far too much deliberation, that the Verdana font will be used on the Smedley Drafts portion of the site, as it has been on this page. It's not what I'd call urgent news, but I figured for some people the old Perpetua font might have been a stumbling block to reading the poetry index. I'd hate to think it's the poetry people don't like...

"The way the days and nights pass by
you don't understand -
- falling like rain through your hands."
-Fountains of Wayne

So my posts have been more sporadic the past few days, and to any regular readers I would apologize, but I'm not sure if anyone is that dependent on my blog habit, except, of course, me.

Which brings me to a response I received to the Blog Hop post. (At least I assume it was in response to that; the sender didn't specify, though he/she did offer a pithy review of this little web log.):

"Some of your stuff is okay, but your all over the place from one day to the next, and some of the stuff is just not that interesting..."

That's just an excerpt, and there was no name given.

But the point is, I do try to be somewhat relevant, but generally I write about what comes to the forefront of my mind and begs to be let out. If that isn't interesting to someone else, the best I can do is offer an empty apology (because I wouldn't really mean it). This is simply an extension of an ages old habit, which is to express myself through the written word. Sometimes people like it; sometimes they don't, but mostly they don't bother to tell me what they think -- which is absolutely fine.

A little while back I started caring a little too much whether people were visiting, what pages they were visiting, and why. I had upgraded my website tracking to the premium package offered by Webstat, trying to analyze who was visiting, when, why and for how long.

Then I started to realize it was too much information to have, especially given my stated disinterest in monitoring my visitors, so I downgraded again. Now I just know how many people are visiting, and a few other general bits of information -- like I said before about curiosity, it's another one of my habits.

Still, thank you to the somewhat anonymous reader who took a few moments to send me a little more detailed feedback. It's no disrespect to you or anyone else, but I will probably continue writing some more stuff you don't really care for, with some other "okay" stuff sprinkled in from time to time. That's all for now.

"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold.

This is one of those classics I was forced to study in high school and then again in college. I think by the second try at it, I had finally developed more of a feel for the poem.

I recently started a blog experiment that has transformed my sidebar into even more of a cyber-strip mall. I have slowly begun to realize that I don't like the overcrowded look of it too much, so I made a few changes to the main blog page yesterday (though the appearance of the archive pages still looks the same as before, for now).

But back to the experiment: I saw this thing over on Ales Rarus from BlogHop.com. It's a way for people to give a blog a quick rating (see the bottom of the sidebar). I guess the decision to place it on this page sprung from my curiosity, as I wondered what kind of impression an average visitor was getting from this log.

The possible answers range from a dark green smiley (for readers who love the blog) to a red frowning face (meaning the reader hates the blog).

The problem I've found with this method of feedback is that I have no idea where most of the votes are coming from or why they are being selected. This is similar to a curiosity I had about posting poetry online a few months back; I got mostly positive feedback, but in most instances I couldn't establish whether the feedback was from someone who actually appreciates poetic form or from someone who felt like encouraging me simply because I made the effort.

And there have been a small handful of online correspondents whose opinions take on a little more weight because I have a general sense of their perspective, but it's hard to know where a stranger's opinion is coming from. Granted, in verbal responses to both poetry and blog offerings, there is usually enough detail to help me figure out why someone likes or dislikes what I write.

But in the case of this Blog Hop polling system (amid the flattery I feel that most of the early responses are positive), I really have no clue what to make of the responses. I have no idea why the votes were cast as they were, nor who cast them, which leaves me without knowing whether I should even be pleased or not with the results.

Which is intriguing mostly because Blog Hop purports to be a resource through which web surfers can determine which blogs are worth reading. But when I sampled some sites on their "Best" list, I noticed that most of them were not blogs I would enjoy too much. Then again, my tastes may be somewhat acquired. Still, I guess the idea of reader-rated blogs is a decent enough scheme, and perhaps it's even useful outside the realm of theory.

I'll probably keep the poll at least a few more days before I give up on the idea. Curiosity is, after all, one of my worst habits.

"Sick" by Shel Silverstein

This was one of my favorite poems when I was a kid, from the writer who is probably most responsible for my early interest in poetry.

I believe I previously mentioned my longtime friend Bob and his Survivor journal (though that was months ago), and I have also plugged his short story site (also on the sidebar). A while back, he started another journal called Deep Dark Secrets, which seems to be shaping into an interesting little literary review.

The one thing I can say about Bob when it comes to reading is that he probably reads more in a typical year than I have in my whole life, so his opinion on a books will grounded in a wide range of reading experience. Just thought I'd mention it.

"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

-The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite poems. I sometimes view the war on terror this way, but I wouldn't want to limit its meaning to just that.

I recently added one rhyme to the about a girl page. The last one on the page is one of the lyrics my brother-in-law recently set to music, and it has drawn rave reviews from the only other person I've allowed to hear it so far.

In the email in which my brother-in-law put me to shame about the whole McDonald's thing, he also sent me a link to the website of my new favorite candidate for 2004 -- though I'm sure many have already seen it, as the web counter on his site is already showing over 1.3 million hits. This one may be a better choice than even Tony Blair...

"This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

-that should occupy your attention for a good 10-12 seconds.

As an aside, I made the executive decision to incorporate a link to poetry in my Friday posts, thereby substantiating the title "Poetry Friday." This first offering, though not my absolute favorite, is one of the all-timers from one of America's great poets. In truth, I wanted to cheat and copy the poem right onto this page, but I do know better, so hopefully you'll visit the link. All I'm trying to do is push poetry on the rest of you, and not just the stuff on my site, but real poems too. Enjoy...

P.S. > Okay, apparently someone else in the blog community came up with the idea to post poetry on this particular day, but I swear I wasn't in on it. I originally wanted to do the poetry thing on Thursday, but I got lazy and didn't quite get around to it, so it only looks like I was following the pack in this instance.

(I'm trying to set a personal record for title length...)

My brother-in-law has been writing music for some lyrics lately. He's told me that he even took some of the poems off the site to put music to them, along with one lyric I wrote specifically for the purpose of being set to music. I should be receiving a tape of said music in the next day or so. I'm anxious to hear what can be done with some of the words I've written when placed in the hands of someone with actual musical talent. I guess I'll have more on that in a couple days?

Speaking of my bro-in-law, I just came across an entry in Cziltang's journal about a small handful of semi-independent topics, among them are the V-chip and one of my favorite songs ever since I saw Oh Brother Where Art Thou. It was a delightful little post that I recommend to everyone -- it kind of carries on the line of thought pertaining to the need for FCC salvation. Cziltang uses a line in his post that I should have probably used by now when he writes "Yes, I know I'm speculating here, but if you wanted research, you would be at a different web page..."

And in other, more self-involved news, I received a healthy dose of email response from the past two entries (as I expect when dealing with such an, um, inspirational topic), but not a single person has yet used my new commenting system. Just an observation; I'm not sure how I feel about that, as I'm perfectly happy to receive and respond to the limited email I receive. I just thought it would be easier for folks to comment (it just seems quicker).

Well, that's all for this morning. Carry on...

"I write at the far corner of counters... on a stool at all-night coffee shops in the San Fernando Valley.
Just some white paper and the land inside my head."
-William F. Nolan

The quote above had nothing to do with my original train of thought when I sat down to write this entry, but I got sidetracked by a friend's journal entry coupled with something she mentioned in an email a little while back. She mentioned that I wrote something that reminded her of a common experience from her past, namely a predilection towards spending time in coffee shops with pen and paper, and as Mr. Nolan might have put it, the land inside her head. I wonder if that's something a lot of people know about her…

I always liked the quote for the same reason, that it takes me back to countless hours spent in nearly deserted coffee-selling establishments, though I've never been to the San Fernando Valley. And sometimes I would have characterized the real estate in my head as more of a vacant lot, and possibly for a lack of caffeine. Oddly enough, though I often gravitate toward coffeehouse environments, I generally avoid coffee in favor of tea (which does on occasion have caffeine also, but mostly not).

I recall the days of sitting in a now-defunct coffeehouse in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia. Sometimes I was alone; other times I was with friends, most of the times I went with friends, one of them was Bob. I always envied Bob's strange ability to come up with the sort of droll thoughts that rarely would occur to me, but I'd often wish they had after hearing Bob express them. If you read some of his short stories, you may see what I mean.

I've long felt short on the creative part of creative writing. I see other people, like Bob, who seem able to effortlessly offer clever quips without a moment's hesitation. I always felt a little slower in that department. I think maybe the difference is his fearlessness in saying things that just pop into his head, while I have an almost unnatural tendency to edit things before I say them -- though I doubt I'd sound nearly as clever, even if I was as free with my words as he's always been.

I consistently find people who meet Bob through me are equally fascinated by him. But getting back to the mental landscape descriptions, while I tend to picture the land inside my head as something of a traditional farm pasture, maybe with a few cows in the frame, I tend to believe Bob's head contains entire cities, bustling with various forms of life and colorful characters.

Anyway, I think I've done what I set out to do, in my own covert way. I believe I have now answered the three questions contained in my far-off friend's online journal, including posting the results, though not in such a straightforward way. And I actually found it more interesting to write about than the world/political commentary I was going to write for today. (Incidentally, I think it's a very good thing that nobody in the EU seems naïve enough to take up the bin Laden truce offer -- I'd like to think that was a no-brainer.)

"You move in slow degrees,
a sudden memory -
- You're a Leonard Cohen song..."
-Better than Ezra

I wrote an entry almost two weeks ago that a few readers seemed to think was fairly sad. And it was. I responded to a couple queries about the entry, and I think I may have come off as someone who takes some sort of pleasure in dwelling on sadness.

While that's not exactly how it works, I must confess I do get something out of expressing sadness, whether it be realistic or conceptual. I was reading some things on Flannery O'Connor recently, as he was a writer who seemed to spend a great deal of his career trudging through some profoundly depressing subject matter. There was an excellent quote that summed up a good bit of his theory on why he dwelled in such literary tones, but I can't seem to find it now.

Suffice it to say, I think there are sad subjects that, at least in my view, don't have any other use than to bring everyone down. But there are also those inherently depressing ideas that can be used to motivate more positive action, as cautionary tales, if you will. But maybe it's just a simple question of taste.

For instance, I have enjoyed some truly depressing themes, whether in music, film, literature, or real life. It may just be a connection with common human conditions and emotions. Perhaps I like to be reminded that we all have something in common. Maybe it was the first time I heard a sad song on the radio and felt like the writer knew something about my own sense of suffering. "Sad songs, they say so much," as Elton John once crooned. And I think there are many other mediums for art to strike our bittersweet (if not just bitter) chords.

I never liked running from the things that disturbed me that way, so maybe that's the difference in taste right there -- that I actually couldn't resist dissecting my past defeats and inner demons, even when I might have preferred to.

I wrote (in one of my long-lost blog entries) that people who try to create any kind of art are, in many ways, cannibalizing their own human experience. And this is true even when we're writing about other people, or conditions we don't know first-hand.

But then again, I could just be trying to justify my own addiction.

"I wrote a song, but I can't read music. Every time I hear a new song on the radio I think, 'Hey, maybe I wrote that.'"
-Steven Wright

My mind's been racing these past few days, and as I have mentioned here before, that can make for the most treacherous writing conditions. Lately it's like thoughts are flying right out of my head, and I'm afraid all the best ones escape before I can close the door -- like a child trying to net a single decent butterfly when there are a thousand moths flying around his head.

I wrote one lyric over the past several days, but I don't know how it turned out yet -- I have to leave that to more objective eyes than mine.

"There are two weapons in the writer's arsenal...The first is stamina and the second is uncompromising belief in yourself."
-Leon Uris

I guess I'd like to believe the lead-in quote above, but I think what I have to say will reject it more than it will endorse it.

I have never been particularly patient or confident in the practice of writing. And what's more, I'm not sure either of those qualities would help me.

While I imagine there is a certain arrogance in anyone believing his or her words deserve to be read by others, I have always second-guessed my own writing, even after it has been distributed for others to read, and in fewer cases, even when it has been accepted by others. If I didn't trick myself into letting things out, I don't think anyone would ever see most of these words.

And on the subject of patience, I often kill young drafts only to later wish I'd nurtured them a little longer. And I've gotten anxious many times when I've submitted writing in the past, whether it be for some meager publication or in the course of school work. I always think there's something better to be written (which is probably a universal truth to tame anyone's wild ego). That's one of my reasons for trying to keep up with this blog thing -- to pressure myself to write more and second-guess less.

But it does give me a sense of satisfaction when my writing is accepted as worthy of someone else's interest. That is, after all, why people generally write -- as far as I'm aware. To paraphrase Morrisey, I am human, and I need to be read -- it's all about self-expression, which is always more gratifying when someone's paying attention. To be honest, the thought of this all sprung into my head because another blogger used the term "attention whore," which I find somewhat appropriate for any of us who feel this need to expose our thoughts and ideas for the world to see.

And the other thing that fueled this little entry is that I forgot a part of what I meant to say in my post yesterday. I meant to describe the mixture of flattery, satisfaction and disbelief I felt when the girl told me how the poem made her feel. That was the first time it had ever occurred to me that anyone could be so affected by something I created. (This isn't counting any girlfriends to whom I'd previously given poetry -- I have re-read enough old drafts of such poems to realize how stupid most of them were absent the fog of romance, and I'm sure the rave reviews they got from those girlfriends had a more than a bit to do with that same fog.)

Anyway, going back to the comment I started to make earlier in this post, I think it's better sometimes not to be too confident; I think we should all want to do better, but I'll admit I could stand to work on the patience a bit.

"Honey, you are the sea
upon which I flow"
-Coldplay

Yesterday I was going to recount the first time I ever composed a poem about a girl I didn't know, and then actually gave the poem to the girl about whom it was written.

It was several years ago now. I can't quite recall the season, or the exact year even. I do remember it was late Sunday afternoon, and I was sitting in my favorite coffeehouse at a table with a cup of tea and a notebook, my favorite posture for writing.

Across the room there were three other people, all three approximately in their mid-twenties: a loud girl with long brown hair, a jovial spirit, and a voice as grating as her demeanor was cheerful -- to me at least. Near her was a young man who appeared to be with her specifically. He wasn't as engaged in the conversation, but not for a lack of effort. The third person was another girl with brown hair, but shorter than her friend's hair. Her face was graced with a pleasant smile, and she was wearing a yellow t-shirt with "Brooklyn" across the front in cursive lettering. As near as I could figure, she was the other primary in the conversation, but her responses were in a dramatically softer voice. The other thing that caught me, probably before I noticed all the rest, was the color in her eyes -- indescribably green, and I can't honestly remember them well enough anymore to even begin drawing them verbally. Suffice it to say, I was preoccupied by the eyes.

I thought about approaching her and introducing myself, but her loud friend was somehow intimidating to me, so I waited for an opportunity to approach, maybe in a moment when loud girl and her guy weren't so nearby. No such luck. After a few minutes more, they left the coffeehouse in unison. I stayed there for another fifteen minutes, during which I started scribbling a poem about the green-eyed girl.

For about a week after, I lamented to myself that I hadn't even approached to ask her name, much less tell her that her eyes were so beautiful I couldn't help but write a poem about them.

The next weekend, however, found me in the same coffeehouse with a friend of mine who lived near the establishment. I was slightly surprised to see green eyes working behind the front counter. I guess I must have been planning subconsciously for such an eventuality, because I had a folded up copy of the poem stuffed in my wallet.
I separated from my friend for a few minutes, and I introduced myself to the green-eyed girl and asked her name. Siobhan, she informed me, was her name (for the non-Irish reader, pronounce that "Shivvon"--and for the record, I had to ask her to spell it for me).

I told her I liked the name, and then I related a brief account of having seen her the week before, and having written a poem about her eyes. She seemed taken aback for a brief moment. I asked her if she wanted to see the poem. She said she would, as long as I didn't mind. I handed her the crumpled copy of the poem, I half apologized for the sloppiness of its presentation and I walked back to my table. I wasn't sure I wanted to see her response to it anyway. Business was brisk for the rest of the evening, and I ended up leaving without talking to her again.

The next time I was in the neighborhood, I tentatively stopped by the shop and saw her cleaning tables there. I got my tea as usual, and found a seat, where I began my customary scrawling. Within a few minutes of sitting down, she approached my table and said hello. She told me she liked the poem a lot, that it had almost made her cry while she was reading it. I told her I was happy to hear she liked it, and that I just felt she was entitled to read the poem herself because she had been the catalyst for it. We talked for a little bit (it must've been her break), and then that was it.

We remained friendly and had several other conversations after that, but it never amounted to more than friendly banter and the occasional free cup of tea. I'm not even sure if there was any flirtation going on -- to be honest, I was just recovering from an ill-fated (and mostly ill-conceived) relationship, so I'm not sure I would have noticed if she had been flirting. I hadn't even thought about asking green eyes out; like I'd said to her, I really just thought she should get to read what she had inspired.

I can no longer locate the actual poem, but I do remember I used the word "Brooklyn" as a title -- probably the only reason I can still remember that shirt she wore.

I have only presented a poem to one other stranger since then, and I had almost wanted to talk more about her than about Siobhan, but it's okay with me,

so long as something keeps me from writing yet another post about politics. I can save my Ume story for another time...

"For all the things I've left behind,
I'm positive that I'm not blind."
-Toad the Wet Sprocket

I was recently reminded of the inspirational importance of "what if."

On November 30, 2003, I posted an entry reminiscing about the origins of Smedley. In this winding account I ended up dwelling on suppositions about a former junior high classmate.

In a conversation I had a couple days back, it was suggested that such a story might inspire further creative writing on my part. I confess that most of what I write, as far as poetry goes, is initiated by some sort of wondering, either about what might have been, or about what may be happening beneath the surface in situations where the details are unfamiliar to me.

I haven't much to share publicly today -- yet.

I have added one meager rhyme, however. Call it the "new" poem. It occurred to me as I was publishing that it may come off as one of those mushy romantic pieces, but that's not really what it's supposed to be. I was going to explain it, but I don't want to constrict anyone's interpretation of it. God knows these things tend to mean different things to different folks.

I have finally begun my fifth page of online rhymes by posting two relatively new poems. The second is an expansion of one that appears on the fleeting glimpses page, and there may be more expansion of that one to come.

To be honest, I knew it wasn't done when I first posted it a few months ago, but I just couldn't help myself...

Please click on over and see for yourself.

Last Saturday, I posted a somewhat wistful entry about the thought process of someone dwelling on relationship struggles. Though it was written in first person narrative, I was inexplicably surprised the other day when a reader commented via e-mail as though the entry was an autobiographical piece.

Though it was based on an conglomeration of personal influences, it was not factual. Any sympathies readers may feel compelled to send me are, oddly enough, still appreciated.

There are two situations in which I find it difficult to write anything new. One occurs when there's nothing going through my head at all. The other, when there's too much going through my head. And the latter often makes it much more difficult than the former; which can be frustrating.
The frustration lies in knowing that I have something in my mind just begging to be set free, but I either can't figure it out, or I simply can't reduce it to words. It's actually slightly easier when I feel like my mind is empty, maybe because there's no crowd of ideas trampling each other -- so when an idea strolls along, I can identify it and concentrate on it with relative ease. But, on the other hand, if no ideas happen upon my consciousness, it just remains empty.

I had thought about commenting on Senator John Edwards' difficulty in reconciling his "two Americas" theme with his own personal wealth, but I can't get fired up about that just yet.

Then I was contemplating a rant about the Oscars and how I detest awards shows. I mean, do I really need a bunch of rich, obnoxious Hollywood types to validate my taste in movies? I liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy very much, thank you. I think the story is an all-time classic, and I didn't need the Academy's blessing to feel comfortable with my opinion (-- I guess that qualifies as a mini-rant, at least).

Anyway, the well is otherwise dry at the moment, due to my lack of creative focus. I guess I could've just left it at that.

"My writing...is an attempt to recreate my childhood...it's an obsession...for me it's not a choice, it's necessity."
-Maurice Sendak

You always knew the children's book authors were the ones with the darkest secrets...

Anyway, I had a point. It had to do with the amazement I used to feel when coming across anyone who both (a) appeared to be normal, and (b) had a compulsion to write. I'd long been under the impression that anyone who wrote compulsively (as I often have) is trying to figure out their own demons (as I often did).
This impression is not only drawn from personal experience, but also from statements from people who really write, like the one above from the author of Where the Wild Things Are. Though, to be fair, a journey of self-discovery is among the strangest ones you can take. Even the most "normal" people can unearth some pretty odd discoveries along the way.

I don't write today for all the same reasons that I started trying to write in my youth, but there are still some similar reasons. I still write to figure out what I think of the world, though I may not start out as confused as I did when I was, say, thirteen years old. But then part of the reason I am clearer now is that I've worked through a lot of my previous confusion with a pen and paper. I do think it's a great way to gain clarity, even if the pen and paper I now use often looks more like a keyboard and monitor.

As I've gone along and had the opportunity to pay attention to more people, I've also learned that the other reason I've always written is the same reason a lot of people do many of the things they do -- to express or communicate something about myself. Whether it's through art, photography, writing, public speaking, conversation or any other form of expression -- we've all got something we think other people should know or from which they could benefit.

I've come to the conclusion that everyone feels this way about something, whether it's a personal need or a social observation. Whatever it may be, everybody has an idea, original or not (most often, as in my case, not). The variance between people who write (or express in general) and people who don't is still one of those things I can't fully explain.

So, I've now come to the point where it no longer amazes me when creative people appear to be normal. I'm not even sure normal is a stable value, as the term is so often used to describe people who seem just like everyone else -- as such, the definition changes.

I am sure that the illusion of normality is one in which I no longer have any faith. And truth be told, I find strange people much more interesting.

"The impulse to write things down is peculiarly compulsive one,
inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally,
in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself."
-Joan Didion

"I can never understand why people who haven't seen me for a while
ask if I am still writing. They might as well ask if I am still breathing."
-Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

I noticed yesterday that one of my favorite bloggers is taking a break for a while. Steven den Beste, author of USS Clueless, announced in his most recent post that he is taking a break to recharge.

I've only been reading him for a few months, but I have to say I've been impressed by his ability to come up with new material -- and it most often challenges my own ideas. Even so, I guess it stands to reason that every once in a while a little recharging is necessary.

But there is much in the way of archived material worth reading on his site, if you haven't been and you like reading "writers." Maybe he'll be back soon.

That's all for me today.

"A piece of writing must be viewed as
a constantly evolving organism."
-H.L. Mencken

A few readers have asked when I will add more poems to the site. That's a good question, and one I cannot readily answer.

I think of the Mencken quote above, and I realize this is why I have so much trouble predicting when anything new will be ready. I tend to let the rhymes simmer for a while before I seriously consider them ready to be seen by anyone not living in my own head. By "simmer" I refer to a rather informal process of review. In this stage of writing, I arbitrarily pick up a previously written draft and make some fairly insignificant changes, only to realize some of the slightest modifications can change the feel of the entire piece, for better or worse.

There are poems I originally wrote years ago that I revisit and change gradually through this tinkering process. Mencken's words give me some assurance that this may not be totally neurotic behavior. Still, I guess I tend to shelter the young drafts like birds not yet ready to leave the nest.

-until I feel like they can fly on their own, at least. Until then, I'm grateful that anyone's even checking out the rhymes.

Thanks for reading.

"So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all."
-Ray Bradbury

This entry is about a book by Ray Bradbury. The title of which is the title of this entry, and the above quote appears in the preface (one of the countless quotes I've scribbled into notebooks over the years). It's been years since I've even seen the book lying around, though I'm sure it's still here, somewhere. I ended up thinking about this, but I started out thinking about the book that I was reminded of when I first spotted this Bradbury title in the bookstore -- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. So, by thinking of both books now, I have apparently confused myself as to what I wanted to write here.

I guess I'll start by saying I enjoyed both books immensely, and I'll admit that I was a little confused by each of them the first time through. But then, the way I tend to read, I can miss an awful lot the first time through. I think it has to do with the way I relate to certain passages of literature. I can easily be distracted when a story starts to sound in any way similar to my memory of personal experiences. Both of these books did that to me on more several occasions.

The passage in Bradbury's book on writing that got me first was an account about how he liked to collect Buck Rodgers comics when he was a boy, but peer pressure swayed him to get rid of his comic books. He went on to explain how, soon after getting rid of them, he ended up wishing he'd kept his Buck Rodgers comics, and how the experience taught him the importance of not letting other people tell him what to like. I imagine (though I can't recall) that this had to do with his resolve to write science fiction, even though some people initially discouraged his early attempts. I guess the lesson I took from Mr. Bradbury's story was to march to my own drummer, or something like that.

I guess this story resonated with me because, unlike Ray Bradbury at the age of nine or ten, I took a little longer to figure out that it wasn't worth it to conform to everybody else's standards. But even when learned late, it's still a lesson well worth learning.

"If I waited for perfection...I would never write a word."
-Margaret Atwood

Looking back over some of what I've written in the past, I'm now feeling the effects of the revisionist bug.

But I guess it should be that way. If I felt like everything I've written in the past was still good enough, I suppose that would mean I've made no progress as a writer (not that I've settled on calling myself a writer). But I keep the old stuff just the same, mostly because it signals at least modest development for me.

This thought really struck me when I recently heard someone speaking of how he thought he'd finally hit his plateau, in that he believed he could get no better at his craft. But the thing that struck me about his statement was that he seemed to mean it in a good way. If I ever think of my skills in such a way, I hope I don't feel satisfied about it.

Until then, I hope I keep noticing ways I can improve on past efforts.

"If you wish to be a writer, write."
-Epictetus
Greek Philosopher

I remember having a conversation with a college classmate. This particular person called himself a writer. Upon reading a small sample of his work, I silently objected to his self-characterization. As much time and energy as he put into writing, he still didn't seem very good at it. I consider myself to have significantly more writing skill than he seemed to have, and I don't like to refer to myself as a writer, mostly because there are so many others whose talents easily surpass mine.

This follows a philosophical pattern for me, in that there are many labels I am uncomfortable attaching to myself. But looking at the meaning of the word "writer," I guess it's reasonable to call yourself a writer if that's what you do, regardless of anyone else's opinion.

But I'm still loathe to call myself a writer; I'm satisfied, for the time being, to just be someone who tries to write. And I tend to enjoy other people doing the same.

My mind has been racing in these wee hours of the morning. I've been wracking my brain, trying to write something, which is not normally how I write; usually I just get a thought and the rest spills out. But for some reason, I feel impatient, and I'm sure I need to say something, but it doesn't seem ready to be reveal itself.

I drift back to a short poem by Walt Whitman, one which doesn't seem to have an actual title:

"O You whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you;
"As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
"Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me."

I copied the above verse into a card and gave it to a beautiful girl a while back, and she didn't seem to take it too seriously. I don't know why she shrugged it off; maybe she just didn't want me to be serious at the time. I'd like to write something like that for her now, but I can't seem to settle my mind on one thought pattern right now.

I have just made a few additions to the poetry site, with a page titled "departures" -- for anyone who's interested.

I has occurred to me that anyone who writes for other people to read must be a bit of an exhibitionist, though I seldom think of myself that way. I think the fact that writers write alone, without immediate feedback, helps them forget that what they write could expose them to some degree. I was taught to keep my audience in mind when I write, but I tend to forget. I usually dismiss the notion that what I write will be read at all, a tendency that I believe keeps me a little more honest -- though honesty can be a double-edged sword.

I think it's better not to think too much about what other people will think of my writing. As scary as the thought of revealing myself to total strangers is, I find that my worst efforts are the ones I over-analyze. And I suppose I couldn't survive if I didn't attempt to say something I thought was meaningful and true.

"(I write) for my own reasons, not for literary reasons."
-Amy Tan

I like quotations, especially from people who spend time on the writing process. Several years ago, my oldest sister gave me a softbound journal called The Art of Writing (1995, Running Press). It contains about sixty pages of light gold parchment paper. On each page there is a quote about writing, usually from a writer. The quotes are meant to inspire creativity, I think...

Well, on June 29, 1995, I wrote my first and last entry in the journal my sister gave me. It wasn't that I didn't like it; on the contrary, I was afraid to ruin such beautiful pages with the sort of drivel I routinely scrawl in such books. I felt the book held more value to me as a sort of unorganized reference for quotations.

I own a few other useful quotation reference materials, as well as a collection I've scribbled myself from quotes I've heard and read. I even had one of those FranklinCovey organizers, complete with neat little quotations on each page. I always like reading these little snippets and figuring out how they might be relevant. I have often used them for jumping off points in my own informal writing, a way to get me going when I can't find a starting point.

"I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten -- happy, absorbed and quietly putting on one bead after another."
-Brenda Ueland (1891-1985)
American educator and writer

This is just how I feel about writing most of the time. Which is why when I feel a little strain about it, I've decided to insert a creative quote, followed by meager commentary, and call it a day.

"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures."
-Jessamyn West (1907-1984)
American writer

-one of my favorite quotes about writing.
This is something I was reaching for, but couldn't quite find when I was writing about "autobiographical fiction" (12/3/03) I just came across it again today, so I thought to add it here.

I used to like to go down to this place in Bryn Mawr, a coffeehouse. I don't get out that way too often anymore, but I still try occasionally. Tuesday is open mic night, mostly music, not really a poetry thing. Not that it matters.

I always found it easy to write under those conditions. The funny thing is I can't always write, or think, with recorded music playing, but when it's a bunch of college students and frustrated local musicians, I have no problem. Anyway, I didn't really plan on doing anything like that tonight, but the thought has crept into my head.

I highly recommend the coffeehouse atmosphere if you're looking for something conducive to creative thought...

-Mark Twain

I probably need an editor. I'm convinced that I write too much and cross out too little. I did receive a fair amount of literary training, but I fear that my love for creating things far outweighs my desire to destroy them. I also enjoy planting and watering seeds more than pruning, encouraging people more than rebuking, and so on. Maybe it's a pattern; perhaps it's just a coincidence. That's all for now.

The most recent poem posted on the site is also the oldest -- so far.

It was written well over ten years ago. It tells a story loosely based on experiences I remember from a long time ago. It's what I started referring to several years ago as "autobiographical fiction." It isn't fact, but I like to think it's true, which leads me back in the direction of the manifesto link in my last post.

I decided to continue the thought process in a new essay I'd been considering posting on the "reason" page of the "streams" site. The new essay was stirred from the back of my mind recently by an online correspondent of mine, who referred to writing truth without necessarily using facts (or something to that effect).

Anyway, I think the new/old poem is that way, hopefully. Then again, it may be too narrowly-written to be understood by many people.

For whatever it's worth, it's there for now...

for anyone who was reading yesterday's post, but didn't make it to the bitter end: read this poem, if you haven't already. Also, you can check out the bio of Richard Wilbur.