http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php Eratosphere Forums - Metrical Poetry, Free Verse, Fiction, Art, Poetry Translation, Critique en Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:23:30 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/images/visioncollison/misc/rss.jpg http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=132 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:37:53 GMT

I purchased a copy of the January issue of Poetry magazine at Barnes & Noble in Union Station in Washington, D.C., recently. The veteran print magazine, founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe and published monthly by the Poetry Foundation, is celebrating its centennial. Check out the magazine website here.

The image of Pegasus on the cover of the January issue, a long elegant flowing graphic of the mythical Greek flying horse, done by artist Cathie Bleck, is one of a dozen representations of Pegasus done by different artists that will appear on the cover of the magazine throughout the centennial period of 2012. It compares favorably to a cartoonish representation of the horse that appears flying above the partying literati in a photograph of a 1947 Poetry magazine gathering. :D

In addition to poetry by two of my favorite poets, Stephen Dunn and Louise Glück (pronounced "Glick"), the January issue contains works by Eratosphere member A. E. Stallings, Joseph Spece, Michelle Boisseau, David Ferry, Amy Beeder, Michael Ryan, Stephen Edgar, and Kathryn Starbuck.

As a poet and a historian, I find fascinating the article on the magazine's early years by V. Penelope Pelizzon, "Potsherds & Arrowheads." It is to the credit of Ms. Pelizzon and the Editors in the opening note to the issue that they recognize that Poetry's content over its history has not been all peaches and cream, that there were numerous "lowlights" as well as highlights. In fact, Ms. Pelizzon admits that it is hard to find the quality poetry among the dreck that was published in those early decades -- that the pieces by such better poets as Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, or (*gulp*) Ezra Pound stand out starkly, as do contributions from the likes of Louise Bogan, Langston Hughes, and Weldon Kees in the 1930's. It's quite an admission for the essayist and the Editors to make: to admit that the contents of the magazine has been so-so over the many decades of its history. It also says something about the personal tastes of magazine editors in any era.

The other literary-historical essay that I like in the issue is the review article by Adam Kirsch on two volumes of T.S. Eliot's early letters edited by his second wife and collaborators. Kirsch's commentary, entitled "Infallible Pope of Letters," is a good, meaty article, salvaging the great man's reputation somewhat, opening by explaining how Eliot saved his literary soul by remaining in England rather than returning to the stifling confines of the United States as his stuffy New England/St. Louis family requested that he do. Although, seeing as Eliot died in January 1965, it's disappointing to see the typo in the title of the first volume of letters, dating the collection to "1989-1922", Volume 2 being "1923-1925." In fact, the first date should be 1898 not 1989. At a whopping $45.00 a pop for each of these volumes, the canny purchaser might wish to buy these books cut-price somewhere. Good luck! :rolleyes: ]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=132 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=131 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:58:03 GMT On my personal blog, today, I've written about "Will They Learn to Love Mitt.... Or the Tale of the Activist Judges."

Of course, it's about Mitt Romney's narrow win in the Republican caucuses in Iowa on Tuesday, in which he defeated conservative former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum by a mere eight votes. Also about the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision of 2010 which enabled Romney's private PACs to viciously attack former House speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia who was riding high in the polls lo those many weeks ago but who finished a miserable fourth in Iowa behind Ron Paul, the libertarian Congressman from Texas.

The narrow Iowa win could augur trouble for Romney, whom many continue to view as a shoe-in for the GOP Presidential nomination this year.

And what of the strong second place finish of Rick Santorum? Well, while Romney continues to appear stiff and unexciting. . . as I would term it, looking and sounding like a storefront mannequin. . . Santorum presents a fresh face and is sure to excite people while Romney surely never will. Not in a hundred life times, Mitt. Sorry.

Indeed, Santorum could be a rising star. Attractive young family, great childhood anecdote in which he described his coalminer grandfather's "enormous hands" while his grandfather lay in his coffin. Just the right populist tone.

See this article on Santorum in the new issue of Time by Joe Klein on "The Passion of Rick Santorum." Santorum might prove too conservative for the great American public because of his attitudes on abortion, gay rights, and health care, but his opinions seem firmer than Romney's, whose career demonstrates him to be a flip-flopper. Obama Care or Romney Care, anyone? At least Santorum seems more consistent and you know where he stands.

Republicans need someone to fire up the base just like Obama fired up the Democratic base in 2008. Here of course I will 'fess up that I am an Obama supporter but am very much of an interested onlooker at the GOP race.

In this Republican electoral cycle, after rejecting a slew of possible rivals to Romney.... Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump (!), Rick Perry, Herman Cain, John Huntsman (probably), and Newt Gingrich (ditto), is Santorum the guy for the Republicans in 2012? It will be very interesting to see what the coming months bring. Don't count Santorum out in the South, particularly as Gingrich and Perry may have more or less sabotaged their own candidacies by missteps and their poor showing in Iowa. At present, Santorum has the momentum and the glamor, and as Klein says, the needed passion. ]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=131 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=130 Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:21:55 GMT Image: http://www.ablemuse.com/v12/images/v12-book-front-cover2.jpg The NEW ISSUE of * The NEW ISSUE of ABLE MUSE, Print Editon (Number 12) - Winter 2011, has just been released, with order/subscription information (for print & Kindle editions), with online excerpts and the subscribers' online edition at: www.AbleMuse.com

ABLE MUSE WRITE PRIZE FOR POETRY & FICTION —
Includes winning story & poems from contest winners and finalists.

editorial: Alex Pepple • featured artist: Alper Çukur (interviewed by Sharon Sharon Fischer Passmore) • featured poet: David Mason (interviewed by David J. Rothman) • fiction: Gilbert Allen, Rachel Bentley, Bruce Bromley, Keith J. Powell, Mary Widdifield, Douglas Campbell • essays: Michael Cohen, Seree Cohen Zohar, André Naffis-Sahely, Frank Osen, Andrew Frisardi • book reviews: Stephen Collington • poetry: Suzanne J. Doyle, Midge Goldberg, Catharine Savage Brosman, Amit Majmudar, Richard Wakefield, Timothy Murphy, Philip Morre, Paul Bone, Alyce Miller, Kathryn Locey, Susan McLean, Rebecca Foust, Lyn Lifshin, Stephen Collington, George Witte, William Conelly, Lew Watts, Jean L. Kreiling, John Beaton, Joshua Lavender, Catherine Chandler, Gabriel Spera, T.S. Kerrigan, Bertran de Born (translated by Maryann Corbett), Achilles Paraschos (translated by David Mason).

... plus write prize & book award 2011 contest submissions & more ...

Details at in the latest newsletter here.

----
With special thanks for an outstanding new issue to -- Juleigh Howard-Hobson (Assistant Poetry Editor), Gregory Dowling (Nonfiction Editor), Nina Schuyler (Fiction Editor), Janice D. Soderling, Tim Love & John Riley (Assistant Fiction Editors). ]]> Alex Pepple http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=130 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=128 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:22:53 GMT Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/6506859421_fdb354abc9_o.jpg Snow on the trackside between Baltimore and D.C. -- cellphone photograph by...

Snow on the trackside between Baltimore and D.C. -- cellphone photograph by Chris George.

Many of the poems that I write are written on the Marc Train between my home in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. I have worked for a medical education organization in Washington since the summer of 2000. I have to admit that the hour-long ride isn't always a pleasant one, what with people sitting next to me and elbowing me (I had a particularly fidgety guy this morning, ugh, not so elbowy but annoying nonetheless) or talking loudly on their Smartphones and other devices and making the whole rail car listen to their conversations. Luckily, I can shut out such noisy fellow passengers by turning up the music on my CD headphones to drown out those intrusions. Of course there are also the people who do other things... like women who make up their faces or paint their nails, or clip coupons. Also I like to put names to some of the passengers that I see on a regular basis, and sometimes write poems about them, such as "My Ride with Sven" about a passenger who reminds me of a former manager of England's national soccer team -- not great poetry... an occasional poem, if you like but it amuses me and it may do you as well... uh, it passes the time. ;)

Indeed, I can write or read on the train, listen to music (anything from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Leonard Cohen to Annie Lennox etc), or fall asleep like my friend Sven. A number of other poems I have written either reference things I have seen from the train at trackside or are about incidents at Penn Station, Baltimore or at Union Station in Washington. You might say that the journey to D.C. has added to my life both culturally and poetically.

After working for nearly 30 years in Baltimore, I enjoy being instead in D.C. in the middle of all the history -- yes, including all the ballyhoo about the intransigence in Congress, and the ongoing game of brinkmanship between President Barack Obama and the Republicans! :rolleyes:

I work on 12th Street, S.W., several blocks south of the National Mall where, if I feel like it, I can stroll through the gardens or go to one of the museums of the priceless Smithsonian Institution, like the National Air and Space Museum, or else the Freer Gallery where I can enjoy the artwork of American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), in the stunning "Peacock Room" created by Whistler in 1876 for his patron, Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick R. Leyland. The two had a big falling out over it, as you will read, and the artwork on the one wall showing two defiant peacocks represents the himself peacockish artist Whistler facing off against his irate and pompous rich patron. If you are in Washington, D.C., you definitely should go to see the room or else just enjoy the web visit. Here's another web page with more on the Peacock Room, that includes some video. Check it out, friends.

In addition, of course, I can attend poetry readings at the Library of Congress or the Folger Shakespeare Library, which in addition to containing a world renowned collection of Shakespeare's First Quarto volumes sponsors a regular reading series of well-known poets. Am I making you feel jealous yet? :D

Allegorical Figures, Arts and Sciences Building, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Photograph by Chris George.

]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=128 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=127 Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:55:18 GMT Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/5017058737_479fb35cb8.jpg My father and mother, Gordon and Yoria George, on their wedding day, at St....

My father and mother, Gordon and Yoria George, on their wedding day, at St. Anne's Church, Aigburth, Liverpool, February 22, 1945. Dad is wearing the uniform of a corporal in the Royal Air Force Medical Corps.

Garrett Middaugh's fine poem, "Remembering My Father on My 52nd Birthday," put me in mind of my own father, Gordon B. George, who died at age 64 on April 15, 1979 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Similar to the situation in Garrett's poem, I am now, at age 63, approaching my father's age when he passed away, which naturally makes me reflective. There are some lines in Garrett's poem that particularly triggered thoughts of Dad: "He had a thing for sports cars, / welcomed the British invasion, from Triumph / to Jaguar, ..." Dad never owned a car in England, and indeed never owned a Jag or a Triumph, however....

Before emigrating to the United States aboard the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth in the fall of 1954, Dad worked as a physical therapist earning a measly £750 at Newsham General Hospital in Liverpool and, to supplement his salary, taking private patients (among them Mr. John Moores of Littlewoods Pools), Dad drove a Norton motorcycle to and from the hospital and his private patients. The poor remuneration was one reason he decided to emigrate from the UK. At one point before the decision was made to leave England, he asked my maternal grandfather for a loan to get a car but my Grandad refused to cough up... as if to say, "I had to come up the hard way and no one helped me, boy!"... In any case, after Dad came to Baltimore in September 1954, he finally could afford to buy a car, initially a gray Hillman Minx station wagon. Within a year or two, he was also able to trade it in for an Austin sedan, and he would own a Rover in his last years ... the latter car a bit of joke because it was always breaking down and the dashboard ice alarm would go off in Maryland's hot and sticky 90°F weather!

So in the mid-1950's Dad was keen on English motorcars and got friendly with Mr. Russell, a German-born Jewish car showroom owner of A&R Motors on Cold Spring Lane who was interested in importing English mechanics. For a while, my grandfather back in Liverpool -- the same man who had refused to give Dad the money to buy a car before we emigrated -- had the job of interviewing potential young mechanics to come over to Baltimore to work at A&R Motors. Dad ended up bringing over I believe up to a half dozen young men and their wives to work for the company, at least one couple of which, Tony and Valerie Walton, remained friends of my parents for years afterward.

Dad was not an easy man for this shy only son to get to know but one thing I will always be grateful to him for was giving me a love for animals which I continue to this day. His mother -- an early photograph of her is below -- had a number of animals, cats and an old little black dog named Smutty that I remember when I was a toddler at the old converted schoolhouse where she lived overlooking Laxey Bay in the Isle of Man.

One day in Maryland, driving his Hillman on the grounds of the Children's Institute for Cerebal Palsy, the hospital in Reisterstown where he worked, Dad came across a baby chipmunk whose mother had been killed on the road. I remember he brought it back to Forest Park, Baltimore, where were living at the time (an area where director Barry Levinson, Mama Cass, and Frank Zappa also grew up -- not that I knew any of them at the time!). The small chipmunk was perched atop the back seat of the Hillman. Dubbed by me "Chippie," the animal was my pet for a while until it somehow escaped into the skirting board of our apartment.

Some twenty years later similarly Dad rescued a gray tabby kitten he found wandering on Route 29 in Howard County and which we named "Howard" in consequence. We always thought he was a farm cat and had maybe been mistreated as a kitten because he was never a friendly cat. In fact, one thing he would do is that he would sit in the chair by our front door and turn his back on us! When my father was dying it was a profound sadness that he believed Howard was shunning him and he remarked that animals know about sickness and that was why the cat ignored him. I don't know whether in retrospect that was more my Dad's paranoia and it was merely the cat's demeanor to the family that had taken him in, i.e., that Dad, at that low point in his life, was super sensitive about Howard's aloofness.

Dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the early 1970's. Although my mother in her later years, when she was starting to become senile, would often say that my father "didn't live long," one of my enduring memories of him was that he would often say that compared to the children that he saw in the cancer clinic, he at least had had a full life. He was also lucky that despite having to undergo rigorous courses of chemotherapy and radiation, he never lost his hair. My father was a cigarette smoker for most of his life so that might account for his disease.... and he did develop lung cancer along with the lymphoma toward the end. He mentioned the fact that as a physical therapist he would often lean over the old diathermy machines and chat to a patient while they were receiving radiation and he wondered if he might have got the disease that way. Another episode he mentioned was that while in the RAF during the war, he recalled that while stationed on the Shetland Islands he had to sleep in a hut that had been fumigated, presumably for lice, and maybe that's how he got it. My father was always very thin, which might have made him susceptible to cancer. Ah, one other thing, while I think about it... the man who lived in the house next door to our north died of lung cancer and the woman who lived in the house directly next door to the south had a brain tumor. There were electricity pylons with electrical wires overhead near our house that ran across the hill in the Tollgate development in Owings Mills where we lived. Hmmmmmm. :rolleyes:

Dad was quite ill in his last year of life but insisted in going into work at the Baltimore League for the Handicapped on Cold Spring Lane to ensure that my mother would have his pension to live upon after he passed. I can remember him going leaving the house all bundled up in the middle of winter 1978-1979 to drive his poorly heated '63 cream VW Beetle down to the League from our house in Owings Mills northwest of the city. I have to admire his bravery for doing so. An example for me. I also remember one time I was with my Mum and Dad down at the clinic at the University of Maryland Hospital and Dad was unable to drive properly and I asked him to pull over for me to take over. He sobbed that everything was being taken away from him. A heartbreaking memory. There was a big snowstorm on Washington's Birthday and we were snowed in. Some kid broke a window of Dad's Beetle with a snowball. I wrote a poem "Blizzard" referencing my Dad and later won a prize for the poem in the Maryland State Poetry Society's poetry competition. :o



This snapshot of Dad was taken I think on New Year's Eve, 1978,
four months before his death from cancer.



Christmas Card 1945 posted from Germany while my father was serving in the Royal Air Force Medical Corps.



My paternal grandmother, Birtles Pointon George (born August 12, 1876 in Duke St, Douglas, Isle of Man, died January 18, 1962 in Christchurch, New Zealand), photographed circa 1900.



Laxey Wheel, Isle of Man, in an old postcard postmarked October 14, 1907. ]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=127 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=126 Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:57:49 GMT Able Muse Write Prize (for Poetry & Fiction) -- Winners: Douglas Campbell, Jean L. Kreiling; Second Place: Susan McLean; Finalists: John Beaton, Catherine Chandler, Thomas Kerrigan, Joshua Lavender, Gabriel Spera, Richard Wakefield; Honorable Mention: Julie Bruck, Kevin Corbett, Anna M. Evans, D.R. Goodman, Andrew Khun, Carolyn Moore, & others.

Read the complete details at Able Muse here.

(Eratosphere congratulatory posts are here.)

Cheers,
...Alex ]]> Alex Pepple http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=126 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=125 Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:27:11 GMT Image: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/6224184684_c0d8ecf558.jpg Image: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6031/6223663269_aaab449415.jpg ...



Photographs by Kev Keegan (see more photographs here)

It was a cool and damp Saturday at noon last week as my wife Donna plus a few cousins and friends gathered on the Mersey Ferry to bid farewell to my mother, Yoria George. The rain held off and visibility cleared as the ferry stopped in mid-river for the ceremony. The moment was emotional for me given that my Mum and I departed Liverpool from the Princes Dock Landing Stage to emigrate to the United States in January 1955 aboard the Cunard liner Saxonia. My Dad, Gordon B. George, who had preceded us to Baltimore, Maryland in September 1954 to take a position as a physical therapist at a hospital in Reisterstown, was waiting for us in New York as we landed. The scattering of her ashes within sight of Wallasey Town Hall was appropriate because my father grew up partly in Wallasey and partly on the Isle of Man. The song "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" by Gerry and the Pacemakers was played during the 50-minute ferry ride. One of our friends, Neil Shinkfield, on board for the occasion had been an extra in the 1964 motion picture of the same name. The next day, I was able to purchase from the Imagine store in the Ferry terminal building a couple of CDs of Merseybeat music, including hits by Gerry such as "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey." On one of the CDs are tracks by Faron's Flamingos, whom the late Liverpool poet Adrian Henri and others at the reopening of the (rebuilt) Cavern in 1984 insisted were better than the Beatles! See here for a YouTube video of Faron's Flamingos performing "Do You Love Me" in the Cavern in 1964. Enjoy.



Cunard liner Saxonia, in the Mersey near Liverpool ]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=125 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=124 Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:37:01 GMT

Liverpool from the ferry in a postcard mailed in 1916

Yoria's Ashes

After a year of death,
we have an appointment

on the Mersey ferry
at 12 noon; Yoria's ashes

repose now in the closet
in their plastic urn,

ready for the final
journey across the ocean.

Age just shy of ninety,
she looked so small

when I identified her,
a personality shriveled,

rendered nut-size -- my
heart shrank in turn.

Now I will carry her
to the muddy Mersey,

ready to accept Yoria's
ashes -- the same river

that bore us to America
almost my lifetime ago.

Christopher T. George

Gerard Fleming has kindly made a reservation for us on the ferry leaving the Pier Head at 12 noon on Saturday, October 8.

I am desperately trying to get in contact with my Matchett cousins to see if any can attend but no joy yet. This would be especially meaningful because my Mum's cousins Harry and Walter Matchett, who had a ships provisions business in Canning Place, helped to see my mother and I off on the Cunard liner Saxonia when my Mum and I left for New York from the Landing Stage in January 1955.

If any Eratosphere members would like to join Gerard, my wife Donna and myself for the ceremony in two weeks time, the support would be nice. The occasion will be non-religious, and I thought we could have drinks afterward in the bar at the Crowne Plaza where we will be staying, as we usually do when we visit the 'Pool. I understand there is no fee to pay to Mersey Travel other than the regular fares. This is most gracious and Gerard tells me that scattering of ashes on the ferry is popular and you had to book ahead. We were lucky to get the reservation. ]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=124 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=123 Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:50:26 GMT As some of you may know, I am originally from Liverpool, England. I have lived in the United States on and off, mostly on, since January 21, 1955,... As some of you may know, I am originally from Liverpool, England. I have lived in the United States on and off, mostly on, since January 21, 1955, having come to the U.S. with my mother on board the Cunard liner Saxonia, met by my father who had emigrated to this country the previous September getting a position as a physical therapist at a medical facility called in CRI in Reisterstown, Maryland, that I am told was the forerunner of Baltimore's Kennedy Kreiger Institute (not sure what CRI stood for).

My father died in 1979 and my mother last year on August 24. One of the reasons Donna and I will be going to Liverpool on this trip is that we will be taking my Mom's ashes. She requested that her ashes be spread in the River Mersey. This request surprised me when she made it in her last months, by which time she was living at Holly Hill Nursing Home south of Towson, Baltimore County. The surprise was that she and I had spread my Dad's ashes in the sea off the coast of Bermuda, my Dad having come to regard that island as he expressed it as his "tropical Isle of Man" where he had been brought up, as well as in Wallasey "across the water [i.e., the Mersey]" from Liverpool.

A good friend who took Donna and on a Beatles tour of Liverpool, showing me some sites that I did not know about, is enquiring about what we need to do to deposit Mum's ashes in the Mersey. Another friend who now lives down south told me by email that he thought that the "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" will stop in mid-river for anyone who wishes to spread the ashes of a departed loved one. I don't know whether that is true or not. I also don't know if there will be a fee to pay to the ferry people or to the local authority. Gerard, who lives in Liverpool, and is a fine local photographer, has said he will find out for me.

I have already written one poem about spreading my mother's ashes, in anticipation. It was called "Mersey, Mersey, Me". I should think the emotion of actually doing it may lead to more poetry. Donna and I should be in Liverpool beginning Friday, October 7.

I recall the scene in that wonderful motion picture "Last Orders" based on the novel of the same name by Graham Swift in which the funeral party spread Michael Caine's ashes in the sea off a pier in Margate, and the ashes blow back in their faces. I hope it doesn't happen to us. When we were in the U.K. in October 2009, it was blowing a bloody gale. Possibly this time the Mersey will be placid, the infernal British weather will cooperate. Am I asking for too much? ]]> ChrisGeorge http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=123 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=122 Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:00:06 GMT 20.07.11 On Radio 4 the news from the U.S. is of proposals to raise taxes for the wealthy and close tax loopholes, all measures bitterly opposed... 20.07.11

On Radio 4 the news from the U.S. is of proposals to raise taxes for the wealthy and close tax loopholes, all measures bitterly opposed by populist politicians. This highlights for me the clinical accuracy of the state of the American mind described in The Pale King. I set off to get to work for seven through the quiet, empty streets. My working shift is a mix of routine tasks (medication, helping people get organised, electronic note-recording), and a weave of narratives, an interplay of voices and persons. I feel drained by the end of the eight hours and travel home like a ghost, shopping on the way, cooking the tea, and then continuing on into the book.

The next section is gruelling, obsessive and fascinating. Chapter 22 runs from page 154 to 252. It reads like a novella. It reads like Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons rewritten by Kafka and spoken by Bartelby. It is exhausting, strange, subversive and inspiring. It challenges my own nihilism: that tendency always to procrastinate and negate rather than to act. On page 154, talking about working in the IRS: “It may be that this kind of work changes you...It might actually change your brain.” I wonder how my brain has been rewired by thirty years as a psychiatric nurse. If I could only make out the map it might be interesting. This whole chapter is a classical Bildungsroman. It turns powerfully to the emerging theme of The Pale King that real heroism is to be found in facing :””Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui—these are the true hero’s enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real.”

P.231.It charts the narrator’s growth from “wastoid” to IRS entrant. It is a compelling portrait of a person changing through a process of life-experience and epiphany. That the epiphany comes in a lecture on accountancy is part of the book’s comic force. “Heroism” is centrally invoked: “Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality—there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you.Do you understand? Here is the truth—actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.” P.229.

I finish the chapter doubly exhausted and exhilarated, write this diary entry, look at my watch: nine P.M... The day and the chapter begin to sink in and away.

21.07.11.

I wake up feeling sluggish. The cat has been yowling around in the night, complaining of the rain and crunching things up under the bed. Adi brings me a cup of tea before she sets off to work. I have a residual dream-memory of riding in a bus for miles before reaching my old Grammar School, going into its new, unfamiliar hall, shaking hands with teachers now strangely young. Sitting waiting there I feel that There Is No Point To This. That’s all. In the dream nothing happens.

I lift The Pale King and continue with chapter 23, pages 253 to 309.There is a kind of “whoosh” for me that these words start to give. The “hellacious” turning of the screw of perception described in the journey by bus and sedan to the Regional Examination Centre in Peoria carries me headlong into it. I find myself cackling and chuckling, feeling that this is the kind of writing that makes David Foster Wallace unique in the literary landscape. There are his characteristic sets of footnotes, but I don’t read them, the print is too small and I haven’t much time before I need to get up, write this, eat and set off to the late shift at work.

I get a feeling of flying, a feeling of power as I read. Moving half-way through the book it feels like a privilege to be in such company. It is excruciating and hilarious in its exactitude as it sits us next to the “human sprinkler” who we have met and empathised with in a previous chapter. I’m completely drawn into the consciousness of David Wallace; I experience his Sisyphean approach to the Centre, his angst and boredom. I share his sense of being “validated” when someone holds up a sign with his name on it. I am there as he looks through the office door glimpsing: “foreshortened faces over which the faint emotions played like the light of a distant fire. The placid hopelessness of adulthood.” I am there in the darkness of the electrical closet “as the Iranian Crisis’s forehead impacted my abdomen twelve times in rapid succession...” (This forces me to read back through the tiny footnotes, uncovering the extra level of farce that the Author has implanted.)

I set down The Pale King reverently, think of the day ahead and begin to get that premonitory anxiety that always comes to me before work. I look for my watch, think what clothes to wear and what to take for lunch. In the bathroom I notice the blue plastic beaker we use has cracked. It must have been cracked for a while. For the past few days I’ve noticed myself thinking I’d put more water in it than there seemed to be in it now. It suddenly strikes me as horribly metaphorical: the running away of life unnoticed from a cracked cup. I shake off the image and go to make some toast.

22.07.11

Vivid dreams, as if reading has sharpened subconscious eidetic imagery. I wake with a sense of loss as all-pervading as the first light through the curtains.

Day off today, with nothing I need to do. I read from 0900 to 1500, from page 310 to page 547.Drink tea, eat cereals and toast. I spin to the far end of The Pale King, concentrating steadily, drawing it in, laughing, levitating a little out of my chair, listening to Meredith Rand tell her story, becoming Drinion, becoming Ed Rand. It is an intense experience. My only distraction is a flashback to work yesterday. I’m in the Clinic Room as the patient leaves the interview the junior doctor turns to me and comments: “He’s very narcissistic.” I look her in the eyes for the first time and say: “Aren’t we all?”

Perhaps I’m reading too fast, not taking it all in. It can’t be helped: I have the time, I have the inclination. I’m pleased to meet Blumquist again and Diablo the Left-Handed Surrealist. I’m disappointed that Toni Ware isn’t more of a major player in the story. (I can’t grasp chapter 47.I’ll have to read it again.) I’m moved again by its examination of what ordinary heroism might look like: Stecyk applying emergency First-Aid to the teacher who has severed his thumb on the saw. I’ve seen it happen: the general panic, the way people flee or freeze, the way one or two people can still function usefully. Its moral seems to be like Kipling’s “If you can keep your head...” This seems to be one of the books major themes: the possibility of becoming and acting as an adult and what that might look like. And yet, at the same time, the awareness that those adults are so rare that they seem like idiots or autistic savants or even ghostly beings. Ed, the psychiatric nurse, has to be almost through death’s door to be able to communicate his kind of wisdom.

The book is a kind of pale zen brick, meant to batter each reader over the head, meant to break through our own solipsistic mental loops. Or is it a mirror for the narcissist to happily enter into?

I get a strong sense that this was not written by a writer at the end of his tether or in despair. The book uncovers new comic and convincing metaphors to describe the human condition, to pose and respond to the question: “How can we live?” I leave it feeling examined, impaled, but heartened, better able to face the next days of my life. It is such a shame that this writer himself reached a point where he felt he could not go on. Such a shame.

If you get the chance read The Pale King. It is a great unfinished symphony. ]]> Steve Bucknell http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=122 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=121 Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:50:01 GMT Reading the Pale King 17.07.11. I buy The Pale King on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Sheffield. It seems to suit the general pallor of the city.... Reading the Pale King

17.07.11.

I buy The Pale King on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Sheffield. It seems to suit the general pallor of the city. I read the first few sentences and know I will buy it. Will I read it? I get home and turn on the Open golf. Darren Clarke looks to be winning easily. At times, as he waits on the tee for the match ahead to clear he looks bored. “Calm, focused, relaxed” is how the commentators describe him.

Feeling the monument-like presence of The Pale King I set up and take two photographs. One of the book and one a self-portrait using a Venetian mask under a cowl. I’m not sure about the results, but I like the veiling and the milky light surrounding the book and the unnerving look that wearing the mask gives me. I post them on Flickr. With that done I can settle down for an hour to read.

I feel a kind of restlessness going on in the book: a searching into identity and meaning, a puzzling of what it means to be alive, to be human. (That’s the kind of redundant sentence that really shouldn’t be written.) A phrase that stays with me: “everybody’s always going round all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it.”

I like the story of the IRS worker” dead at his desk for four days before anyone asked if he was feeling all right.” This has echoes of Bernhard and Melville for me.

The reading is easy, things split down into vignettes which ask together: “What if the truth is no more than this?” I stop reading at page 52: “creatures just did what they did.” I hurry to get together an evening meal of chicken, new potatoes, carrots and broccoli before Adi gets home.

18.07.11.

The story of the trailer-park girl hits a new note: “Her inner life rich and multivalent.” She seems inventive, empowered, offering a way through the difficult world; but like so many of these initial stories the narrative stops off in mid-air
.
In all this reading the author feels very close, his figure standing at the blurred edge, just beyond the book. Is he The Pale King? Hamlet and The Waste Land shift in his white robes and through the regalia of his pages.

I have to go and choose tiles for the bathroom and shower. In the car I jot down: “The Pale King in his kingdom rides between fear and boredom.” I wonder how quickly I will forget this book. What do I remember now about reading Infinite Jest? I remember passages about tennis that I really enjoyed, that felt were a new way of writing and looking at things, but am I remembering the right book? What is left after you put a book away? I think of keeping this diary to record my journey through the world of The Pale King.

19.07.11

I set off from the house at 0730 on my way to a Training Day on Improving Services for Survivors of Sexual Abuse. After a few steps down the path I realise I am missing something. I go back and retrieve The Pale King. It’s a mild day and my mind is mild and blank as I wait for the bus. I read rapidly once I’m in transit. The pages seem to take to the air. Page 128: “And Desk Names are back. This is another plus under Glendenning. Nothing against the Pale King...”So He mysteriously appears for a moment and is gone again!

I’m totally involved in the Studs Terkel-like accounts the IRS agents give of their lives and their work. It makes me think I should write my own novel using the NHS as the core of the story. The story of the dog on the chain on page 117 chokes me with emotion: “The dog hated that chain. But he had dignity. What he’d do, he’d never go out to the length of the chain.” ...”He didn’t hate it. The chain. He just up and made it not relevant. Maybe he wasn’t pretending—maybe he really up and chose that little circle for his own world. He had a power in him. All his life on that chain. I loved that damn dog.”

I feel as though I’m reading some kind of latter-day Wisdom Literature, some kind of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. There’s a grand push to find meaning and virtue through the human and desk-bound world of the IRS. When I look up the girl beside me is reading Die Trying by Lee Child. I’ve read that too and enjoyed its dream-fulfilling “fantasies of competence”, but the book I’m reading has me pale in its grip.

The long elevator conversation between the IRS executives is a tour-de-force and farce, a deep analysis of the psyche of the United States and of all those who live there. What is being argued for? I feel it’s looking for a way out of solipsism, looking for each of us to take some responsibility, not be overwhelmed by our smallness. Just paying your taxes, using your vote, doing your job as well as you can...these become acts of civic bravery that define us against the onrush of transience and selfishness.

The Training Day consists of ten small quiet people sat in hushed room thinking about staff fears when working with victims of abuse, particularly sexual abuse. The objective is to equip staff to routinely and consistently be able to explore issues of violence and abuse in assessment and care planning with clients. It’s worth doing. It might just help someone in a situation when they would welcome the question being asked:”Have you been abused?” I get the feeling David Foster Wallace is with us in this enterprise. Yes, part of it was boring, some of it gets tangled up in the bureaucracy of the NHS, but it has a virtue. It was a day well spent.

On the bus home I’m too tired to lift The Pale King from my bag. I watch the familiar streets pass. A dark haired girl on the seat in front is deep into Ian Rankin’s The Black Book, which I haven’t read. ]]> Steve Bucknell http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=121 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=120 Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:44:48 GMT Dear Eratosphereans, As all of you who observe or participate in our Distinguished Guest events already know, I’ve been successful in... Dear Eratosphereans,


As all of you who observe or participate in our Distinguished Guest events already know, I’ve been successful in approaching and convincing celebrated poets and writers to appear and give us of their time free of charge. Thus, the DG forum has recently been graced by such renowned guests as Charles Martin, Michael Juster, Rachel Hadas, and Dorianne Laux to name a few. None of that is going to change, and I will continue to bring acclaimed Distinguished Guests to volunteer their times and insight for our edification and enlightenment.

However, in a new development, I have been looking into the option of enhancing that experience with a more intensive and targeted interaction with a Distinguished-Guest caliber instructor. Or, let’s just call it a new option for a mini-conference in an online setting, with most of the benefits of its brick-and-mortar equivalent and little of its drawbacks of cost and time away. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve worked out the technical infrastructure that will facilitate such online instruction to the point where it will be as close as possible to a physical classroom experience.

The first online course will be conducted by our forthcoming Fiction Workshop Distinguished Guest, Nina Schuyler. I have scheduled it such that Nina will segue from the end of her Distinguished Guest Fiction workshop straight into teaching this 30-day writing program (for poetry, fiction and nonfiction). Nina also teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco, and as many of you already know, she’s the fiction editor of Able Muse (complete bio and details here). Here are some of the features of this program:

• this will be a poetry, fiction and nonfiction writing program.
• even though it will be online, we will provide as close to a physical classroom experience as possible
• a forum will be set aside for participants to discuss the assignment, or other issues or interest, and the instructor may drop in as warranted
• a weekly lecture/interview session will be provided, which will include computer-based online interactive tools for workshop members. The technology will allow voice and video interaction with the instructor and between participants comfortable with such an interaction. Your web browser will be the only software tool needed to join in! Those who are technology-challenged will be able to link into the conversation from their regular home phones.
• for thirty days, you’ll receive a series of triggers: a writing exercise trigger, a sentence trigger, and random words trigger.
• weekly interview with a published author about his or her process.
• weekly craft lecture.
• and much more, as detailed here.

All this will be for the minimal stipend of less than one buck daily! Now, compare this to the cost of traveling to a brick-and-mortar workshop venue for just a couple of days for a comparable course! A normal brick and mortar conference or workshop usually runs for a few days and costs several hundreds of dollars in registration fees, not including travel and other expenses. However, for a comparatively tiny contribution to help defray the cost of the course infrastructure, and for the instructor’s time and effort, you too can partake in the 30-day Able Muse Writing program!

Register now to reserve your space because there’s a quota to the size of the virtual classroom that will be leased for this program. Full details including Nina’s bio and registration information is now available here.

Cheers,
…Alex ]]> Alex Pepple http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=120 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=119 Sun, 03 Jul 2011 05:38:45 GMT Dear Eratosphereans,

I'd hoped that a reminder will no longer be necessary -- between the more visible sponsor/support icon on the right hand panel of most Eratosphere pages, and the sticky posts to that effect in this forum and the other conversation forums. But it hasn't worked out that way . . . yet.

Anyhow, support remains voluntary as before. Thanks to the few were able to respond and assist! To keep this as brief as possible, I won't rehash all the reasons already presented in the past. So, I'll simply point out that, for benefit of the newer members, one of the stickies referenced earlier is here. Or, simply click the support link to the right or at the top of most Eratosphere pages.

Thanks, everyone!
...Alex ]]> Alex Pepple http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=119 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=118 Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:47:25 GMT I can blog if I want to.
I can meet my friends online.
'Cuz my friends all blog,
and if they don't blog
then they're no friends of mine! ]]> Scott Miller http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=118 http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=117 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:03:29 GMT *KINDLE EDITION* - Image: http://www.ablemusepress.com/images/am-print-v11-kindle.gif Now vailable as a Kindle digital book from ABLE MUSE, Print... KINDLE EDITION

- Now vailable as a Kindle digital book from ABLE MUSE, Print Edition (Number 11, Summer 2011) - Go to Able Muse Press for details. Or, order from Amazon.

FEATURES / REVIEWS

- Now featured on Ted Kooser's American Life In Poetry column -- "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" by April Lindner, from the ABLE MUSE ANTHOLOGY here. (after today, it will be archived here.)

- A review of ABLE MUSE, Inaugural Print Edition, by Newpages can be read here.

ERATOSPHERE EVENTS

- Recently completed: Repeating French Forms with Distinguished Guest, BRUCE BENNETT; hosted by SUSAN MCLEAN -- see Able Muse/Eratosphere Distinguished Guest forum)

- Coming Soon (starting June 25 on): Translation Bake-Off Event with Distinguished Guest, A.M. JUSTER; hosted by ADAM ELGAR, at Able Muse/Eratosphere Distinguished Guest Forum.

SUBMISSIONS

Able Muse - Submissions are read year-round, however, to appear in the forthcoming Winter 2011 issues, your poems, fictions, essays, book reviews, art and photograpy must be received by August 31, 2011. Anything received after that date will be considered for later issues only. Read guidelines and submit here.

Able Muse Press - The yearly, general manuscript reading period has been opened since May 1, and will be closing July 15, 2011. So, there's still time to get your poetry or fiction manuscripts over the transom. Details here.

Wishing you all a great summer of reading, writing and publishing!

Cheers,
...Alex

--
Able Muse - www.AbleMuse.com
Able Muse Press - www.AbleMusePress.com ]]> Alex Pepple http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=117