[Rick Mullin]

Hi Carl and Deborah,


Whew. I'm definitely not looking to develop Tattoo Man as anything close to malevolent. I describe him as shown the door at a diner in the same poem in which I describe people shielding their children from him at the mere sight of him walking down the street. He's edgy, he's different. He's put upon. He's done nothing wrong. There are perfectly innocent people thrown out of places... I mean for the malevolence to appear in the upstanding citizenry.

I am thinking about how I might make it clear that he's having the cops called on him because his entire face is covered in colorful tattoos.

I guess I'm OK with the promise part. In fact, I think I have some clarity there. I'm referring to the promise inherent in the American Dream. You might be pushing too hard to find meaning Deborah...? I'd hate to think I ever wrote a poem that has a puzzle in it. I hate puzzle-bee more than I hate Lite Verse, and I avoid reading it. Ambiguity is different. That I like.

And I like contradiction. The ideal of the cowboy includes cowboy outsider. Thus put-upon. But even a tougher-to-reconcile contradiction is usually kind of interesting to me. Carl, I just don't think I have him as a bellicose sexual predator. The ideal (infinite) cowboy is far from those things. And Queequeg is a guy you wanted on your side, as soon as you stop being afraid of him. He's kind of quiet and leaves when he's not wanted....

As for reading Sapphics aloud, Deborah, I find that you need to set table with line integrity, so that you get the bum-de-bum-de-bumbidy-bum-de-bum-de (sounds like a lonesome cowboy on riding on the range, no?) over and over with each line more or less telling part of the poem. The poet John J. Trause insists on reading Sapphics as if he were Sappho, which is to say blubbering heartbroken through the whole poem! He can pull it off. He also raps Chaucer.

I am thinking about whether I need to flesh out Tattoo Man, whom I think N is sticking up for as a kind of archetype--the ugly duckling.

Sorry about the health concerns, Deborah. You've put me to work on this more than it might seem, given my responses.

Thanks again,
RM