December Fourteenth

This might get a little sad.

Glancing at the calendar in the lower right-hand corner, I observe that today is December Fourteenth.  An innocuous date, one might think... yet careful examination of the historical record (i.e., the daily journal I have kept for the past four years) confirms that this is an important anniversary.  It was on the evening of December Fourteenth, 2013 that my girlfriend Tara and I arrived in the Republic of Korea and began our grand adventure.

That first job we had (the one we fled from after three months) was meant to be a year-long engagement.  So in a world where everything works out beautifully for those whose hearts are pure, we'd be on our way home to America.  If you'd asked me where I thought I'd be in a year, I'd say I was going to be flying back home for Christmas all the wealthier and wiser for a fulfilling year abroad.  But as we know, the world isn't perfect, and I've been home, living in my mother's house and working in my father's office, for about three months now.  Tara's likewise with her folks, taking some time to reacquaint herself with life and friends and family in Oregon.

Due to the international date line, my last December Fourteenth lasted about eight hours and was mostly spent in transportation before collapsing on an uncomfortable and unfamiliar bed.  This one lasted the typical length, and was mostly spent in my computer chair in the company of Tumblr and Netflix, though I did take pity on my body and take a walk through the hills by my house a few hours ago.  Tomorrow, I'm going back to work for my dad, where I will continue to restlessly mark time until I'm ready to move back to Oregon and put my life back in order.  As exhausting as the last December Fourteenth was, I think I liked it better.

You know, it's Christmas time, I've fallen from an awkward situation halfway around the world into a very comfortable safety net, and I just feel so sad.  That's really the hard kernel of what I wanted to say tonight in this blog post: I feel so sad right now.  I miss my girlfriend, who is the single most important person in the world to me.  I miss my friends, the ones in Korea as well as Oregon.  Sometimes I cry about it.  Sometimes I don't talk to anyone but my parents.  Sometimes I'm all alone with thoughts about how alone I am and how little control I have over myself.  Lately my heart feels like it's constantly preparing for the sudden eruption of a worst case scenario, but it can never prepare enough and will simply fail at the least provocation.  That kind of stress is unhealthy, and I don't know how to make it stop.

I know what I want in life, more or less.  I want a satisfying job and a peaceful home with Tara, along with a thousand stories to carry us through the years of our lives.  But melancholy is weighing me down. 

I'm working on getting things together, and I still have good times every now and again.  But I've definitely been happier than I am today.  I hope I'll be happier again soon.

Free Candy: Sketch Comedy at the 10th Avenue Theater in San Diego

Writing about comedy is hard, because it's generally not funny.  Explaining why a joke lands is like relating the plot of obscure foreign movies: interesting, but only if you're a huge nerd.  Only the hugest of nerds would dare make the attempt.

The performers of the sketch comedy show Free Candy could probably write a really, really funny review of their performance on Friday night.  Some might question whether that review would be biased or accurate, but it would definitely be funny.  And frankly, that's all that anyone who's ever written about comedy has ever wanted.  Those who cannot do, pathetically emulate while describing in general terms, often with no idea what they're talking about.  Allow me to furnish an example.

Before I get serious, I want to emphasize something very important: there was, in fact, free candy at this show.  Everybody only gets one, and that is not nearly enough, but times are hard and comedy doesn't come cheap. On the basis of this generous gesture alone, I award Free Candy three out of five stars.

Cast members Devon Kane, Meridith McNeill, Brendan Milove, Nick Scutti, and Alec Sobejana complemented the complimentary sweets with an evening of highbrow amusement, inviting us to cordially chuckle at rarefied jokes about BDSM, latent incest, and the improbable anatomical possibilities of an umbilical cord.  However, the full range of their performance cannot be described in a punctuated three-part list.  It would take some kind of high-tech video recording device to display their genius and do it justice.  I understand there was one in the theater, and I will do my best to track it down.

Making use of minimal props and effective lighting and sound cues, Free Candy was all the funnier for its DIY ethic and the sheer determination of the cast.  The occasional flubbed line, cracked smile, or weak joke hardly slowed them down, as each actor sold their momentary parts with glee and powered through to the next highlight.  Special musical guest Devon McNeill's appearance set the stage for my favorite sketch of the whole show, expertly combining talented singing with unhinged disruption and deadpan non-reaction.

Perhaps the real engine of the show was writer and performer Brendan Milove, who committed his full intensity to each new character at a moment's notice.  Perhaps I am biased in making this claim because I have known Brendan since we were children and his mother got me a ticket to the show.  Perhaps you should just go see him yourself some time and judge.

Having thus placed the integrity of this review in grave doubt, I leave you with a thought on the value of small-scale local theater productions.  In today's increasingly high-structured, over-produced entertainment culture, it is extremely refreshing to watch a dedicated band of goofballs go nuts on a tiny, tiny stage.  Performances like this are what make culture a going concern, and should be supported at every opportunity, no matter how many dark alleys you have to explore before you find them.

I also want to remind you that there was, in fact free candy on everyone's seat before the show.  That's not something you see every day.

The Republican Congress

In my heart of hearts, I really do not see what has managed to convince the voting public that the solution to the problems of the United States is to send more Republicans to Congress.  It really strikes me as the equivalent of smashing a broken computer with a baseball bat: it fixes nothing and your kids are likely to crawl around in the mess afterward, putting pieces of glass and circuitry in their mouths.

It looks like America is about to send a Republican majority to the U.S. Senate, to join the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  The two houses of Congress will then presumably begin passing horrible new bills (which the President will veto), or simply continue voting to defund the Affordable Care Act (which the President will also veto).  Jack shit will get done, and everyone will stew in a toxic cloud of misery and blame everyone else for their own failures.  The people of the United States (at least the ones who haven't had their votes stolen), contemplating this state of affairs, are smiling, and already practicing their collective swings with a Louisville slugger. 

But what the hell do I know?  I'm an unemployed teacher.  Nobody gives a damn about teachers or the unemployed (apart from making sure it's easier to get rid of them or sweep them out of sight).  When it comes to national politics, nobody really cares about anyone but themselves.

So I'm not looking forward to Tuesday night.  I'm going to watch the dominoes fall, shake my head, and get on with my life.  Being a cis-het white guy with wealthy folks, there isn't a whole lot the Republican party can do to hurt me directly.  It's just about everyone else I'm worried about.

In 2014, the Republican party stands for ignoring the issue of income inequality, shrugging at our country's most deplorable human rights failures, and if at all possible actively making these problems worse.  Democratic politicians frequently find themselves on the wrong sides of these issues.  But the Republican party has staked its reputation on always being on the wrong side. The party has a compulsive need to claim the most classist, nativist, chauvinist possible positions as the national mood will allow.  The principal failure of the Democrats has been their vain desire not to be outdone on this score.

For a long time, keeping Republicans out of power has seemed like a good enough reason to vote for Democrats.  Honestly, it's about the only recommendation I can make for the party as a whole.  But it doesn't really fix things either.  To go back to my metaphor, voting for a Democratic Congress is a lot like trying to turn on a broken computer every morning, hoping it'll work this time. 

The elite political class of the United States has systematically failed hundreds of millions of its citizens.  Half of us are low-income or impoverished.  If you are a woman, a person of color, a disabled person, an immigrant, an adherent of a non-mainstream religion, or anywhere in the LGBTQIA field, you can be certain that duly elected politicians are working hard to screw you out of your rights and your basic human dignity.  And if you're a young person, you can also be sure they're doing their level best to alienate you from the political process, and sap your empathy for the people most marginalized by the system.

The next few years will be more of the same, only with more broken glass on the floor.  There may be hope for us yet, in the form of genuine grassroots activism that continues to edge the mainstream of political thought in a more progressive direction.  Creeping from victory to victory, we might make the sort of progress that will improve people's lives in the long run.  But there's little glory in the march toward a better America.  It's going to be ugly the whole time, for the principle reason that the national political establishment, and especially the Republican party, are going to make it that way.

I've already voted in this election, and yeah, I voted for Democrats across the board.  I call it damage control.  Millions of people have already voted as well, and it's too late to change their minds about anything.  But if you haven't voted yet, and you're looking for a little help deciding, here's my recommendation.  Don't vote for a Republican.  Vote for anyone else or no one else.  Dull the edge of this wave if you can.

The Witch

Once again, I have a special Halloween poem to share with everybody!  It's kind of a murder ballad (not really a ballad, but whatever) with supernatural/necromancy themes, which is the sort of thing one expects from Halloween.  I believe it was the last poem I wrote in South Korea, so there's some history for you.

Enjoy the poem, enjoy the holiday, and remember: no racist or otherwise obnoxiously offensive costumes tonight, please.  If you've already bought/made one, just be a bed sheet ghost or something.


The Witch

Samantha is a widow in her nineties,
spoken for by spirits of the dead:
her husband, and the men who died before him,
lost along the path Samantha led.

The first to go was strangled in his garden:
vines and roots were strapped around his throat.
They slashed and drew the blood that formed the letters
scrawled upon the borders of his coat.

The second was a boy, no more than twenty,
drawn to her by rumors of her wealth -
a sacrificial knife with gilt inscriptions
pierced his belly in the night by stealth.

The third was older, lusting for her body,
frail hands like wax upon her waist.
The runes appeared in white, his skin had purpled
with the potion's toxic aftertaste.

The fourth commanded navies on the ocean,
but never lost his life or limbs in war.
Instead he drowned beneath a fleet of papers
and a bookcase shelved with witches' lore.

The fifth was mauled by dogs in early morning;
pups he'd raised, who dragged him 'round the yard.
They left his dying body in a circle
charged with glyphs that left the soil scarred.

And poor Samantha, helpless to relieve them
from the evil of her mother's curse!
She couldn't help but love the men she'd married:
living all alone, she judged, was worse.

Samantha's mother now is resurrected;
after seven decades in the grave
she holds her daughter's husbands all in bondage,
feasting on the spirits of her slaves.

The people reckon Sam to be a monster
luring men to death, a vile witch.
But few remain alive who saw her mother
weave the spell that destined her a lich.

The Beauty of the Bead

I've been back in the good old USA for two weeks now, and so far I haven't gone completely broke.  Living off the kindness of my friends and whatever cash I could claw out of the Republic of Korea prior to my premature departure has been less stressful than I'd imagined.  Part of it is the comfortable surroundings: being back in the old college town, eating at all my favorite places, and luxuriating in the glorious ease of my native language.  You can forget yourself in a little "vacation" like this, which is a shame because in a week I will pull up stakes once more and try to get my feet on the ground with my folks in San Diego.

For better or for worse, living in Eugene, Oregon has more or less shaped my understanding of what adulthood is like.  That understanding probably includes a lot more sitting around in basement apartments that smell like weed and cats while watching anime than what some other people might pick up.  It's certainly included a lot less gainful employment.  But eight years in this town have definitely affected my expectations of where I can go and what I can do.  Despite growing up in Southern California, and visiting home for Christmas and summer breaks, Eugene has come to feel like a more natural environment.

As I am about to hit the road again, however, I can't help but notice how Eugene has changed in such a short time.  When I left Eugene last summer, downtown was undergoing a major phase of gentrification.  The area around Kesey square had sprouted new restaurants, brewpubs, and other businesses, often in spaces that had been vacant or under construction for a very long time.  I'm a little too politically aware to call this an unambiguously good thing.  A cursory glance is enough to tell that "improving the neighborhood" has not solved Eugene's homelessness or unemployment problems.  Installing trendy shops and increasing police presence is not the same thing as giving people a place to sleep.

The city's transformation has accelerated since I've been gone.  However, I find it hasn't been limited to downtown.  More and more apartments for University of Oregon students have popped up in all directions.  New construction is everywhere.  And amidst all the new business are a few empty units where old businesses died and none have dared to take their place.  Eugene is growing, "developing" as some might say, but I wonder how much of it is actually getting "better".

As a young white man with a few dollars in his pocket, Eugene's new face certainly holds attraction for me.  Since I took a break from booze, I can't derive quite as much enjoyment from the seemingly dozens of new breweries and beer supply outlets that have seemingly sprung from the very Earth itself.  But I have a weakness for the Golden Needles at Townshend's Tea House, and I bought myself a going-away tin today.  The new downtown Bijou theater is showing Stop Making Sense this week, and I think I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't go and see it on the (biggish) screen before I left.  The most gentrified areas of Eugene just feel like a pleasure to walk through, more so than they were a few years ago.

But if I take a step back, I see that the charms of the new Eugene don't far exceed the charms of the "old" one.  We already had tea shops.  We had art theaters.  We still have the same embarassment of lush parks and walking/biking trails.  More nice things is fine, but where's all the investment that could be going toward finding shelter for the guys in sleeping bags over by Circle K?  For that matter, how fares poor Springfield next door?

Like I said, I'm out in a week, at least for a good long while.  I can't begin to imagine how little Poway has changed in nine months, but I'll see for myself soon enough.  When I find myself in Oregon again, I don't know what I'll find.  But I wonder if, as the time passes, the spirit of familiarity that binds me to this place will become unrecognizable.

Maybe it will, but nevertheless I had a very Eugene sort of encounter today.  Walking through Kesey square while munching on a wrap from Pita Pit, I was suddenly approached by a man who asked if I were a fan of good poetry.  I told him I was, and he offered to compose a poem for me on the spot, in exchange for a little money.  It sounded fair to me, so I agreed.

He asked me to come up with four words to get him started.  I told him I couldn't really think of any, which wasn't strictly true, but most of the words I was thinking of were sandwich-related and I didn't want to insult him.  So he suggested I give him a phrase instead, and the first, most poetic thing that popped in my brain was "the bead on the necklace".

I can tell you, this streetcorner poet was no bullshitter.  His flow and his meter were all on point.  In a way that I (a fairly terrible improviser at anything) can only marvel at, he unspooled a structure and and loaded it with meaning, as though it were a perfectly natural thing to do.  He modified my phrase somewhat into a refrain, and spoke about "the beauty of the bead" as a timeless property, undulled by wear and use. 

I couldn't quote any of it to you (I have a bad memory for phrases), but I can tell you the immediate effect it had on me.  Bright as it was today, watching this man speak poetry made me feel like I had to take my sunglasses off.  I felt painfully aware from the first few lines that I was walling myself off from him by hiding my eyes.  And I felt ridiculous for holding a pita wrap in my hand the whole time, but there wasn't much I could do about that.

I didn't know much about this guy.  I didn't know his name or where he came from or what he did when he wasn't hanging around downtown in  the afternoon.  I knew he was black and I was white.  I knew he had a passion for poetry.  It seemed like he could tell I had more than a passing interest in it too.  I knew he was talented, and that he tended to spit a bit at the really emphatic parts.  But I didn't really know what to pay him when he was done.

So I opened my wallet, and I ended up settling on four dollars.  He smiled and said "thanks man, that'll help me get a slice".  Then he walked over to Sizzle Pie to purchase said slice, and I went back to eating my wrap.

I thought about what he and I had in common.  We both wrote poetry, but he did it for money: despite my recent financial misfortunes, I was the one in a position to pay him for it.  It was an ordinary occurrence for him, but a rare and singular experience for me, the sort of thing a person with no real understanding of how the world works might go home to blog aimlessly about.  I'm still trying to work out what exactly I should take away from the experience, how I should handle the memory.  It just seems really important to me that I heard spontaneous poetry in Kesey square, addressed directly to me from a poet who wasn't just fucking around.

I think there was something of the spirit of Eugene in that interaction.  It was fun, pleasurable, and possibly expanded my consciousness.  It certainly made me feel more self-conscious.  But it didn't make me any more articulate: even now, all I can really do is point emphatically and insist that it was very, very important that it happened.  Only in Eugene.

That's how I started my last week in my second home.  Already, I'm apprehensive about leaving it.  I don't think I'm done with this town yet, but I can't be sure I'll ever really "live" here again.  I just hope I'll carry some of its beauty with me when I leave.

Poetry Jam #16

In less than twenty four hours, I'll be on an airplane back to the United States.  And yet, in the nine months I've been in South Korea, I haven't posted any of the poems I've written in this country.  Now, that's no good!

So in the interest of whittling down my backlog and putting a little cap on whatever the hell it is I've been doing here, I present another jam of poems.  Enjoy it with toast, or perhaps hotteok?  If we're going with a Korean theme, that is.  These poems date from December 2013 to March 2014.  Not every random scribble from that time made the cut, so here's the best I could muster.

Venus and Diana

Look at the moon!
You can see its darkness
tonight.
Look at Venus,
is that why?
Maybe something in the way
she (shrieks)
across the empty space,
as silently as diamonds in the
burning,
crushing
jaws of Earth at night.
Why suffer in silence,
Diana?

Sudden Snow

Almost rain and almost freezing,
falling sparsely down like something
from a dirty dream;
precipitation in my hair,
evaporation on the stone
before the cold kicks in, and then it's
snow,
it's snow, it's snow,
as many flakes of snow
as clouds can drop
before they're weary
of the cold,
and clouds are hardy creatures
in the months when we have snow.

Stranger's Land

A stranger sits
in another stranger's land,
living off their fruits
and vegetables,
and trying not to seem intrusive
when they sneak a slice
of sweets
from the fridge;
bowing politely,
saying all the politest words
they can remember,
speaking softly so
they can't be heard distinctly,
taking what they need.

Gakwonsa

The pale sun is hidden by a cloud,
and Buddha's face is hid behind the trees.

The mountain trail, obscured by winter's forest,
winds above the temple in the breeze.

"Look how pale the sun has grown", I said,
and pointed to the sky; but when you turned,

it was too late, because the pale disc
was out of sight, behind the clouds it burned.

Love Thy Friends

Love thy friends,
it's not as easy
as the Bible
reckons it.

Love thy friends
with burning rags
and keep the cocktail
always lit.

Love thy friends
because they need it,
even if
they're full of shit.

Princess Adventures

The magic chest
is in the dungeon,
in the room
beneath the stair;

Just break the wall
behind the mirror,
light the candle
if you dare.

Then fight the fifteen
Stalfos Knights,
and lay a bomb
to blast them bare,

Before you force
the lock and lift
the gauntlet, gleaming,
in the air.

To claim the power
of the gods,
you have to creep
the whole way there.

Portraits of Sound

Let me wax on about the
portraits of sound I hear you
painting at the summer's end -
pointilist notes of blue ascending
from a brush of your fingers
on a most receptive, musical neck,
the contours that you pick and peck,
staccato, silent as the singers
at the span before the bridges
drop, the autumn's brown and purple
lines a counterpoint, a frame
of reference for a portrait,
landscape, treasure map, a concert
of red and gold and violins.

Molten Possibly

The molded plastic in my hands is hot,
molten possibly; if I had time
to check it out I could confirm it, but
there is no time, there is no chance, my eyes
are fixed inside their sockets, only staring
straight ahead.  Their lids are likewise kept
from blinking by this ceaseless stimulation,
mind monopolized by color,
brain distracted by the calculations,
nose unheeding of the burning flesh
(if anything is truly burning now).
The only taste of touch I feel is dull,
no pain, no savor, only dull and warm
against my palm and through my fingers, and
the memory's distinction fading out
the more they twitch, the more the buttons click.
As hours fall between the minutes and
the gap between the present and the time
on the alarm is shrinking, I am sure
that I can stop at any time I choose;
but I do not, because it's Sunday night,
not Monday morning, and besides, I haven't
heard a fire alarm, so there's no proof
the plastic's melting: don't you think I'd notice?

I Still Remember

I still remember throwing up,
I still remember thinking things
I'd be ashamed to fess up to now,
the words to songs I hate,
those songs I used to listen to
without complaint.

I still remember hating people,
being wrong
and swearing up and down
that you were wrong goddammit.

I still recall a few of the lawns
I mowed that summer
and the finishing touches
of a multimedia project for
sixth grade social studies;

so why the hell am I always
looking the same things up in Google?

The Sailor's War

I was a sailor in the war
because they couldn't burn the sea,
and every strip of land, they swore,
would smolder for eternity.

It was no navy's clothes I wore,
or battleship that carried me;
for fire screams from cannon's bore
and water beckons to the free.

My boat was mine, and nothing more
but salt and fear and memory,
some fish to catch and cans to store,
a motor and a rusted key.

I didn't seek a peaceful shore
to build a mansion in a tree,
but watched the people I adored
expire from the shallow sea.

With dread I heard the rattling scores
of bombs reduce them to their knees,
and on the people's heads they poured
a toxic stew of misery.

And thusly I survived the war
until the day they burned the sea,
and all of planet Earth (and more)
was broiling with humanity.

Now dying, seared and aching sore,
I scan the flames, and I can see
one sailor's life is nothing for
a final act of liberty.

Refracted Heart

O refracted heart,
an arrow passes through you
in discontinuity,
embarrassing the angels,
shaming Eros
(who never learned the science)
and confusing lovers for want
of a straighter shot.
How did you accomplish this,
O heart,
and are you as frustrated
as the arrow looks?

The Fire and the Heat

Let's talk about John Lennon,
talk about the guy
who spent his life in search of saints
and ended up a chintzy saint himself.

Do you love the songs he sang
about his broken heart,
or did they all get lost among
the people-power, hippie-anthem stuff?

And what about the famous one
about the girl he had,
or had him, so he burned her flat?
You know he beat a few in real life

"because he was a jealous guy",
or words to that effect,
a child of nature, lost, and longing
for his mother, for a ticket out.

Would he want to be the man
on every hippie's wall,
forgiven for his cruelties
because he was against a fruitless war?

I know he tried to make it better,
and I love him for it,
like I love that famous song
about the girl he had, whose flat he burned,

because she had the nerve to laugh,
because she wasn't his.
I don't believe he ever lit
that fire, but I know she felt the heat.

Terror Tea

I want to drink a tea,
steeped in the salty ocean,
and hallucinate from all that garbage.
Not the small, safe visions
of a drug like LSD
or PCP,
but the ugly, mind-fucking terror dreams
that plague the minds of those who dare
perform incredibly stupid acts.
I want to drink the tea
and smile,
blog it on my tumblr blog
along with all the illustrations
of the goblins in my eyes
before I die.

Something Useful

An artificial reef,
a murky place of refuge,
somewhere new to swim;
a hipster affectation
of sophistication,
something that the neighbors
hadn't thought to flaunt.
- What are ways a fish could use a bicycle?

________________________________________________

Venus and Diana should have been in the last poetry post, I guess.  It was the last poem I wrote before I came to Korea.  The subject matter reflects my reading material at the time: I was speed-reading The Golden Bough so that I'd have one less book to pack.  So, that explains that.

Sudden Snow and Stranger's Land are exactly about what they seem to be about, and I don't have much to add about that.  They have similar free-versey tics, and I'm sure I had a very good reason for that.

Gakwonsa is a Buddhist temple, and I wrote Gakwonsa after visiting it.  It was the first big touristy-thing we ever did in Korea.  It is in iambic pentameter, so I guess that means I was actually trying.  More white space between lines definitely makes for a nicer read.

Love Thy Friends and Princess Adventures were both written at work, when I should have been working, but I don't feel guilty because that job was a total scam, yo.  Sometimes I like to experiment with very short lines.  And yeah, Princess Adventures is clearly about The Legend of Zelda.  There was a rumor around that the next Zelda game would star the princess as the heroine, and I sort of wrote it with that in mind.  As for Love Thy Friends, I tried to express succinctly my thoughts on loyalty.

Portraits of Sound is kind of pretty, and Molten Possibly is kind of a mess.  Both are kind of hard to read without stanzas, I suppose.  I think I like what they are about more than I like the poems themselves.  This blank verse, non-rhyming stuff always seems like a good idea at the time, but I never seem to execute it gracefully.

The Sailor's War was a very self-conscious attempt to write something longer than usual that didn't suck.  I even ran it by some of my friends to ensure that extra level of not-suck.  And it's an anti-war/environmentalist statement to boot!  Not too shabby.  Rhyming the same two rhymes over and over is tough, but also kind of fun.

I worked really hard on The Fire and the Heat.  Being a huge Beatles fan, and growing increasingly aware over time of the very glaring personality flaws of John Lennon, I struggled for some time to articulate my feelings about him.  It's hard to reconcile admiration for someone with the recognition that they've done some awful, indefensible things.  I tried to depict some of that tension.

Terror Tea, if memory serves, was motivated by my frustration in our attempts to leave our first job in Korea (which, you'll remember, was a total scam).  I just wanted to write something really grotesque.  Fortunately, we managed to escape a very short while afterward.

Counting change

I'm going back to America soon, and my feelings are complicated. 

I can remember how eager I was to leave my country, to get away from all of its rampant injustice and hopelessness.  The endless political deadlock on TV, the oppressive weight of our defective economic and justice systems, and the media's clueless self-satisfaction are the sort of thing that really ought to be too much for a person to deal with.  Yet, people deal with it every day, as if it's actually survivable.  Maybe that is the worst part.

Now I'm happy to be going back.  Why?  It's not because I've learned to love America's racist hypocrisy or aggressive ignorance.  It's just homesickness, soothed with the promise of security and familiar faces.  Traveling long-term can be fun, but you really start to miss people.  You miss talking to people for reasons other than "because they speak your language too".  You forget about the big problems of society when you're all caught up in your own difficulties.

Going home to America doesn't really feel like going back to all the things I like least about it.  Thanks to the magic of the internet, I never really left those things behind.  When I started planning to go to Korea, the big story was the murder of Trayvon Martin.  Now that I'm coming home, the big story is Michael Brown and the protests in Ferguson, Misouri.  No matter how far I travel physically, it doesn't change what happens in America.  My absence doesn't make everything better.  And being a white man, I never even had to suffer the worst of it.  I'm no refugee, just a bleeding heart.

Going home to America really just feels like going home.  It's comforting to be around familiar things and right now, I could use some comfort.  I'm not exactly leaving on my own terms, but I'm satisfied with what Korea, as a country, has given me in terms of life experience.

My only real regret right now is that Tara is not leaving at the same time as me, and that she'll be spending the holiday season in Oregon with her family before she comes down to rejoin me in California.  Our successful partnership, living and traveling and working together, has been the absolute best part of our tragically abbreviated foreign sojourn.  I can hardly stand the idea of being apart for four months.  But in the end, we will be together again.  I can live with that knowledge.

In the meantime, I have a host of smaller problems to deal with.  Most of these involve moving my stuff.  I have slightly more books now than when I came here last December.  I have an XBox 360 that needs to be diaposed of (because I already have one at home) and a big bag of games that I still want to play.  I bought this teapot that's really cute and asymmetrical and probably really fragile.  I knew I'd acquire more material goods before I had to pack up for home, but in fairness to me I really didn't think I would have to deal with that until next March.

And I've got these coins.  A big pile of coins, because from the moment I landed in South Korea I developed a strong preference for paying in cash, yet rarely bothered to carry exact change.  Being bored and unoccupied the other day, I counted out the value of of all this spare change, plus the few coins I happened to have in my wallet: ₩38,080 (plus seventy three cents that somehow made the transpacific journey all those months ago).

The great little speaker system I bought in April got jostled a little while ago and now it makes a high pitched tone whenever it's turned on.  I could fix it, or buy a new one for ₩38,080.  But since I'm going home, I guess I don't have to!  Instead, I'm using it to buy groceries.  I'm turning into the kind of person who goes to the grocery store to buy one or two small items, and pays in dimes.  It's fantastic.

My plane for Portland by way of Dallas (?) leaves on September 22nd around five o'clock.  Due to time zone shenanigans, it will arrive on the same day, about two and a half hours later.  Technology is truly a wonderful thing.  As for now, I'm counting the days and tryingnto get myself ready for being home.

New Blog, New Life

Well, it's been a while since I posted on here, hasn't it?  Up until very recently, I have been quite busy.  Much as I dream of regular updates, my life always seems to get in the way.

Anyway, I'm not really so busy anymore.  As those of you who read my travel blog know, I recently lost my job.  Being laid off from an unsustainable, doomed business is probably not the worst thing in the world.  But I miss my students and I miss doing the things I was doing, and to put it mildly the ordeal of losing the job was not good for my self-esteem. 

Consequently, Tara and I had to move to a new (smaller) apartment in Gangbuk, in northern Seoul.  It's not so bad, really.  It has a lovely view of the city and the mountains.  With a little luck,  I can pick up some part-time work and make a little money to save before we head back to America next March.  I am trying to be an optimist, because I understand that it's good for you.  Either way, it's been nice to kick back and play house husband for a bit.

What I really want to tell you, the wandering readers who pass through this page now and again, is that I have a new, new blog!  It's not really "my blog" per se, but rather a collaboration between myself and six of my good friends.   So even when I'm being lazy and unproductive, someone should be making updates!   That's the hope anyway.

The new blog is called First and Last Album Music Review, and you can credit my friend Bau for that creative name.  It's basically what it sounds like.   The seven of us will write articles wherein we review/discuss/praise/condemn the first and last albums of a particular band or recording artist.   The plan as of now is for each of us to write about seven artists each, but the project is very open ended.

As of now, there are only two posts up: my inaugural review article (on the Beach Boys), and Bau's somewhat deranged introductory post.  I don't really know what to make of it, but it's there.  My friends and I will soon be churning out lots of fun music content, just as soon as we've stopped being lazy.

I'm happy to write about these sorts of things for free, because it really is a lot of fun.  But my situation being what it is, I don't mind throwing out there that, if somebody ever wanted to pay me to write something for hem, I probably wouldn't object...

Poetry Jam #15

Sometimes I forget how long I've been at this blogging game.  15 batches of poetry (amidst my other scribblings) and getting better all the time, if self-evaluation is any measure.  I think it's a little bit remarkable, even if no one's reading it.

Just kidding.  I know someone's reading it.  I have the page views to prove it.  Unless they're just stumbling in here by accident, taking a quick look, and running like hell.

I've been thinking lately about why I allow such a large backlog of poetry to build up before posting it on here.  I think these thoughts a lot, usually when I go through a period of writing a lot of poems.  I always come back to my usual excuse that writing a poem, and then ignoring it for nearly a year, allows me to view it later with a critical distance.  Is this necessary for quality control?  Maybe.  I don't even know.  It's just what I do.

These twenty (twenty!) poems date from July to November of 2013.  Future biographers will note this as my "waiting to go to Korea" period, and some of these poems are sort of about that.  A few of them also contain references to death and violence, so be aware.


Epitaph

No less a man for being filthy,
no less honored for his shame,
and nothing more and nothing less
than human in the face of death,
or wrapped in the embrace of living.
That is what he'd have them write
before they cleaned his filthy corpse
and put his innards into jars:
no more a corpse for being filthy,
no more honored for his tomb,
and nothing less the loss of someone
human to a mausoleum,
lost in the pursuit of living.


Omnibus

Have a look at your city
through the window of a bus.
See the people of your city
in their comings and their goings,
all these people of your city
through the windows of a bus,
see that face of yours in
need of shaving, faintly,
in the window of a bus.
Find the driveways and the
stones of houses in your memory,
buildings from another time
that linger in these windows,
trees from other times before.
Have a look at your city
through the window of a bus
and see it like it's new again,
and never forget it.


The Role of the Praetorian Guard

Waste your day in vain ambition,
dream of rule and wake in ruin;
so the princeling's guard had said
before they dragged him from his bed,
and dashed a club against his head
and, joyless, watched him as he bled.

Thus the realm was saved from ruin
through the princeling's wild ambition;
so the younger princeling said,
a crown of laurel on his head
and bodyguards around his bed,
the wardens of the walking dead.


Clay Castles

Whenever I could manage,
I would build my castles
out of clay,
so the sea would have a
more difficult time
in taking them away.

But when I came back to
my little kingdom,
I never found my castles
made of clay;
thicker sand won't coax
a work of life to stay.


Magic Love

I don't know magic in this life
but when you speak, your tones,
your precious words that move me
with your sorrow and your crying joy.

With all my doubts dispelled, my love,
my heart embraced with silks,
the charm is truly cast,
my love, I need to hold you in my arms.

So summon me, across the sky
and to your bedroom, love,
so I might comfort you
tonight, before you make your sleeping spell.


Science Love

If there's a force that could keep us apart,
I know I've never weighed it on a scale;
they don't make a scale big enough to measure
all the weight they'd need to hold me down,
to keep me here, to stop my arms from finding you
and holding you before you fall asleep,
to hold you up from falling.


Elisabeth Sullivan's Parrot Paintings

The lady found her theme, and it was
parrots, clutched intently
on the tips of boats and surfboards,
catamarans,
sinking in the water, never sunk
while wings could soar;
parrots, perched in waters
where the colors never faded,
parrots on the shore
and parrots where the people
never go anymore.


Preparation

What time awaits me, I will never learn
until that time remains with me no more,
escaping me, but granting me in turn
the awful knowledge of that open door.

The wisdom of the living for the night
will have no business on the road with me,
wherever roads may lead, whatever light
may shine, wherever my arrest may be.

I would depart in love, and I would choose
to shed the weight that rests upon my brow
before I close my eyes, if I could lose
the fear that holds them open even now.

And if I had a choice, I would forget
the limits of our words, and be at peace,
if time would grant the courtesy to set
a warning of the day of my release.


Beach Bones

Beach bones broken by the sea,
scattered, lying next to me;
beach bones built of burnt-out wood,
leaving roots where once they stood.
Beach bones bitten by the breeze,
Bony husks of weathered trees.
Beach bones barely passing by
the hours of the ashen sky.


Campfire in the Light Mist

I like the way you build
the fire.
I like the way you build
my dangerous tendencies,
the way your fingers run
along me,
the crackle and the
hiss and pop,
the soft implosion, pulsing flame,
the way the sturdy log is thus
consumed,
the way the water sizzles
in the heat of you,
the mist upon the fire,
the glow,
the burning want.


Document Based Question

The first quote is from someone who
describes history;
the second is from somebody who
makes it,
shapes it,
lives it,
dies alone with it.
As you can see, they are very different.


Magic Potions

If you want to talk about magic potions,
I can buy them at the grocery store
in packs of six, or more if I choose,
in handsome marketer's packaging.

These potions are of limited uses,
but I'll take them over spells of love
and draughts of shrinking land, until
such time as they are brewed like beer.


Untitled October Second Poem

My lungs and your heart,
somehow working apart
from each other, in spite
of how we miss each other,
no matter how hard I breathe
or how few steps there are
from here to your door,
no matter how I distract
myself, if it's you
I want then breathing is
unsatisfying to our hearts.


Letters of the Alphabet

Q looks like an alien letter,
like a body-snatcher,
standing in for K
(or maybe C?)
and hoping no one notices
or asks too many questions
that they aren't prepared
to hear the answers to.

But Q is not a foreign glyph,
at least no more than C
or G or even K
and long lost friends like Þ.
Our symbols have a history,
a right to be among us
and to spell our words
as well as they are able.

Q is not a body-snatcher,
Q is not a rank impostor,
Q does not have to answer to U.


Summer Sun

Like a summer sun on winter mornings
you are here,
waking me with brilliant warmth, and
you are here
because you want to be here,
nowhere else, my miracle, my paradox,
my crisp summer sun.


Tea Time on the Edge

On my right, a steeping mug
and on my left an oily plate,
but one of these is finished;
ten fifteen, it's time to start,
there's so much time I have to fill,
but I am tired of filling time
with tea and Thai food, yeah?
In front of me, a puzzle,
mostly empty, getting fuller,
waiting for the ink to fill the spaces,
but my inspiration struck (or did it?)
and the tea is steeping hot
and I just want to drink my mug, yeah?
before I get caught up in something big.


The Language of Ice

The ice is talking to me,
speaking through the water,
every crack a verb
and silence an imperative:
"get out, get out"
you fool, (it says)
"get out,
and take your little ideas with you."
I can hear it growing softer
as the ice's edges melt,
but if you listen very closely
you might just make out the mockery
inherent in its accent,
defiant to the last
of its most treasured independence,
before my thirst negates it.


Royalty

I don't want to be a king,
a ruler of the boardroom
or the bedroom,
hereditary
emperor of some new money manse
or legislator;
not without your wisdom,
not without your sovereignty
exalted up with mine,
so glorious,
contradictory,
abolishing the very thought of sovereignty
with all the tenderness of common sense,
my love,
the only rule we'll know is kiss
and pray for rain,
and make the most of weather
when it snows.


The Victory of Music over Painting

Sound is sight-deprived
and sight is silent, hollow,
cracking through the skull
like ripples in the frost.
But sound is free from sight,
so sound is warm and comely
as a body's heat;
this sound is just as much
a spike in temperature
as echo in the ears,
a triumph over eyes,
and ice, and window glass.
a sound can melt your heart
before a sight can make
you want to change your mind.


The Bear

The bear who came to life to hold your hand
when you were crying on your bed, alone;
his plastic eyes, his fur of ruddy sand,
the way his empathy has always shown
when no one else could look you in the face -
would you trade him for a cigarette,
a carton-full, a bottle (or a case)
if anyone could make that bear forget?

_________________________

Let the commentary begin!

Epitaph puts us off to a nice, morbid start with a consideration of what it must be like to be a corpse.  I don't remember why I wrote this, exactly, but it's confusing and provocative and I like it.

At the time I wrote Omnibus, I was in the process of moving out of Eugene, Oregon.  Having lived there for the better part of eight years, I was putting things in storage, getting packed for a quick jaunt to San Diego to visit my family, and preparing to subsequently live at my girlfriend's house in Canby until our flight date was set.  I found myself riding the bus home from downtown one day, and feeling all nostalgic.  So that's what Omnibus is: blatant nostalgia with some little repetition tricks.

I wrote The Role of the Praetorian Guard while reading A Game of Thrones.  This cultural phenomenon was in fact a series of books before it was a popular television series, and could easily have been retitled "A Series of Horrifying Murders."  Somehow, it got all up in my poetry.

Magic Love and Science Love are in fact a pair, though I don't remember if I planned it that way before I'd started writing the second one.  In fact, it was probable a happy accident.  Magic Love has a fun little 4/3/3/5 metrical scheme, though I clearly cheated on the second stanza with those gratuitous "my love" insertions.  Science Love has a really wonky meter and I'm not sure it's actually good.  But dammit, these two are meant to be together.

Elisabeth Sullivan's Parrot Paintings is about exactly what it sounds like.  The artist, Elisabeth Sullivan, was at the San Diego Art Walk in August last year, and so was I (as a booth wanderer, not an artist).  I thought her work was lovely, and something inside me really appreciated the liberal presence of parrots.

My return to San Diego came with a very unexpected emotional impact.  Shortly after my arrival, my dad told me that members of the extended family were gathering for a memorial service.  My cousin and two of my uncles, all of whom had died in recent years, were going to have their ashes interred together at the San Luis Rey Mission.  A few days before the service took place, my aunt (who was conducting the event) sent out an email to invite any of us to prepare a speech or poem if we would like to.  This prompted the writing of Preparation, though I was too shy to read it at the time, or to show it to anyone up until now.  The service was very emotional, both for its suddenness and because I remembered that the last time I'd been to San Luis Rey (2007?  2008?), my cousin and my two uncles had all been all been alive and present for the interment of my grandfather's ashes.  Anyway, I'm proud of Preparation, and I wish I'd read it then.

Beach Bones and Campfire in the Light Mist both came out of a weekend with my best buddies on the Oregon coast, as the countdown to Korea began.  The first is about driftwood and, yeah, driftwood, whoo.  The second is about our campfire, which we somehow kept alive through the Oregon coast's notorious and incessant rain.  It somehow spun into something disturbingly erotic.  Don't read too much into that.

Magic Potions is really funny to me now that I've quit drinking.  Aside from the obvious, I got to use the phrase "draught of shrinking land" in a poem about beer.  I am and will always be a huge nerd.

I have no idea what's going on with Untitled October Second Poem.  I read it today, blinked, and counted out the meter:

-/ --/
--/ --/
--/ --/
-/ -/ -/-
-/ --/ -/
-/ -/ -/
-/ --/
-/ -/ --/
-/ --/
-/ -/ --
-/ -/ -/ -/

What the fuck is this shit?  Is this free verse?  Is there any sort of plan here?  I didn't even remember writing it.  But I liked it, so it's here.

Letters of the Alphabet is probably really stupid, but I like it so I will subject you all to it too.  To read it properly, recall that the letter Þ is called "thorn".  If you read it in your mind as "P", you are a very silly person.

Summer Sun and Royalty are about Tara, and my feelings for her in the time that her parents were gracious enough to allow me to live in their house indefinitely while we waited months for our Korea departure.  She likes it when I write her poems, and she is a wonderful muse.

Tea Time on the Edge and The Language of Ice are documentary evidence of what an exciting time that was.  When you're writing about the way ice cracks in water over time, you know you need to go outside.  I kind of miss Thai food, actually.  I think I've only had it once since I got to Korea.

Lastly, The Bear is a poem for making people feel bad about smoking and drinking by invoking the memory of their childhood stuffed animals.  That probably makes me terribly square.

The Ways of the Poem

A friend of mine recently asked for some instruction in the arts poetical.  Being something of a poet myself, and otherwise stuck for ideas of what to actually write on this old blog of mine, I thought I'd write him a primer on the subject of writing poems.  If you too have an interest in this most venerable of crafts (and likewise have no real background in it), I hope you'll find the following helpful.

I personally think it's a shame that the basics of poetry aren't more widely known.  On a rudimentary level, poetry is very easy.  The only necessary equipment is the ability to speak a human language (and yes, sign languages count).  You'll need a pencil and paper, of course, if you want to actually write it instead of just memorising verses like the bards of yore.  But most people these days have those lying around, or the digital equivalents anyway.  Just add an idea, and there's no real barrier between doing nothing and writing a poem.

So most people have the tools ready to go.  They just don't quite know what to do with them.  Some people might go their whole lives knowing nothing about how to put together a decent poem, except that it ought to rhyme.  There are some exceptions: certain jokey forms like limericks or haiku (a serious form in Japanese, in my experience usually comical in English) seem to get in people's heads in a way that they can use, even if they can't explain it in technical terms.  What I want to do now, more or less, is root around in the toolshed, and give names to all those pointy things you've always noticed but never used.

Poetry: What It Is

In simple words, stated to be as broadly applicable to as many languages as possible, poetry is the art of organizing words for aesthetic effect.  In a limited sense, this is applicable to prose as well, but there is a key difference.  Prose is ordinary writing that can borrow poetic techniques to imbue a message with feeling.  Poetry is as much about the feeling as it is about the message.  It's about trying to take a message and make it as beautiful, or as ugly, or as much of any other desired effect as you can.

There are a million different ways to do poetry, especially if you're not limited to a single language.  But if English is it for you, it doesn't mean there is only one way to write a stanza.  There is a long line of tradition and convention to draw from, but ignoring the parts you don't like is an acceptable practice.  After all, it's only words in the end.

Much like in music, the most central property of poetry is usually rhythm.  Rhythm means something a little different in different tongues, but in English the primary rhythmic element is syllabic stress.  For most poets in English, the location and number of those stresses in a line is of primary importance.  Building a decent poem out of them means keeping track of their arrangement, and using it fo the advantage of the poem's feeling.

Other essentials of poetry include phonics, vocabulary, and a willingness to disregard "essential" things when they are massively inconvenient.  You can go surprisingly far, however, with rhythm as your primary guide.

Before You Can Write A Poem, You Have To Write Lines

Rhythm is fundamental on at least two levels: within the lines, and between the lines.  The former is the domain of meter, while the latter is what we might call form. 

Meter is basically a scheme for organizing the rhythm of a string of words that has been placed in a line of poetry.  In English the rhythm is defined by patterns of stress.  Thus, meter in English usually consists of counting out stressed and unstressed syllables.  A poet may write a line like this:

A happy rodent playing with the cats

and the pattern of stresses will look something like this:

a HAPPy ROdent PLAYing WITH the CATS

More abstractly, the line could be rendered like this:

-/ -/ -/ -/-/

where "-" indicates an unstressed syllable and "/" indicates a stressed one.  You can use those symbols for your own purposes, but you don't have to.  I just like how they look.

"A happy rodent playing with the cats" happens (by stunning coincidence) to be a line of iambic pentameter, the classic embodiment of formal English meter.  "Iambic Pentameter" is an awful lot of Greek to throw into a discussion of purely English poetry, I know, but most of the technical vocabulary of poetry is Greco-Latin.  It's better to just get used to it.

The form of a poem largely consists in how its lines are arranged in reference to one another.  The lines might all be metrically identical; pentameters marching endlessly into the distance, as it were.  They might also vary in length or type.  "Free verse" consists in telling form to go to hell, which is a valid lifestyle choice but also requires more unconventional and advanced ways of thinking about rhythm.  I wouldn't recommend it for beginners who want to avoid learning about form.  You're better off mastering the writing of metrical lines until you can toss off a line like "a happy rodent playing with the cats" like it's no big thing.

The Wide World of Feet

A line of poetry is measured in "feet", a term that is less reassuringly simple than it might appear.  The word "pentameter", for instance, indicates a line of five feet.  Recall that "a happy rodent playing with the cats" was rendered abstractly above like this:

 -/  -/ -/ -/ -/

The unit "-/" (an unstressed syllable followed by a  stressed syllable) is a kind of foot known as an iamb; hence, a line of iambic pentameter.  This brings us to the point of this section: there are many kinds of feet, and they all have Greek names.  Here are four of the most common/useful feet:

The Iamb (-/): an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.
The Trochee (/-): a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.
The Anapest (--/): two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one.
The Dactyl (/--): a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.

And here are two more with a more specialized use, usually as convenient substitutes for an iamb or a trochee:

The Spondee (//): two stressed syllables.
The Pyrrhic (--): two unstressed syllables.

There are dozens more feet like this, and they're all mostly impractical for writing at length.  Those six will carry you a good long way.  Memorizing their Greek names is useful for technical analysis, but the most important thing is to remember the stress patterns.

Feet and words are both composed of syllables, but they are not the same thing.  "A happy rodent playing with the cats" is ten syllables, seven words, and five feet long.  The first foot consists of the word "a" and the first half of the word "happy".  There is no cause to build a line of iambic pentameter out of five words with a natural "-/" stress pattern.  You probably shouldn't do it, unless you've found five words that sound awesome that way, in which case you should absolutely do it.

Finally, remember that words like "trimeter", "tetrameter", "pentameter", "hexameter", "heptameter", etc., refer to numbers of feet, not syllables.  A line of anapestic pentameter like this:

But they fled the unstoppable army of ravenous bats

has the same number of feet as "a happy rodent playing with the cats", even though it has fifteen syllables instead of ten.  It's also significantly harder to write five anapests in a row over and over, so you know.  Trade off.

Little Rhythm Things

Stress in English does not exist as a yes/no dichotomy.  Words of three or more syllables typically have more than one stress, with one syllable receiving most of the stress and another receiving less.  Depending on the tone of a sentence, syllables that would typically be unstressed can suddenly reverse their roles.  "Put the markers IN the basket," said the stressed-out teacher to the student, investing more weight in the word "in" than any other syllable in that sentence.  In poetry, this makes a world of difference.

Stress is always relative.  A lightly stressed syllable can appear to be unstressed in the right context.  Consider the word "ravenous."  The big stress falls on syllable one, but a smaller, secondary stress falls on the third.  In the line "...army of ravenous bats," the meter treats the second stress like it's no big thing.  Either I'm just a sloppy poet, or the stress is all a matter of perspective.

Pausing a line, either with a comma or a period, interrupts the flow of the meter. If the natural expectation of an iambic pentameter is to pause every fifth beat, then shortening and lengthening the period between pauses defies expectations in all the right ways.  The proper name for pausing in the middle of a line is cesura; the term for connecting two lines without a pause is enjambment.  Hand in hand, they make poetry seem less artificial and more like the natural, irregular rhythms of speech.

All of this affects the overall rhythm of a line in a way that's deeper than meter.  To a sensitive ear, a metrically perfect line can still sound slightly off if these micro-rhythmic factors are undermining the regular march of stresses.  But with skill, these effects can be put to work in creating a richer and more interesting rhythm than the simple baBUM baBUM baBUM baBUM baBUM of iambic pentameter.  Above all else, poetry is about making the language work for effect.  Play with rhythm, and you are bound to discover all sorts of interesting tricks.

 Phonics Effects

I went a long way with no mention of rhymes, but the time has come.  As everyone knows, the art of poetry calls for more than hypnotic, mesmerising rhythms.  People want the old razzle-dazzle.  They want some rhymes.

Rhymes, alliteration, and other trappings of euphonia make for more colorful poetry.  They also run the risk of looking cheesy, clichéd, and contrived.  But when they work, they really bring the pretty.  If it's pretty you're after, then rhyming is worth the effort.

The rules of rhyme, much like those of meter, are elastic.  Depending on your chosen form or your own personal taste, it can be anything from an exact correspondence in vowel and consonant sounds (bold/gold, free/sea, day/play) to a looser kind of family resemblence (bold/goal, free/scene, date/played).  Near or "slant" rhymes may not always satisfy a purist, but they are valid poetic techniques and can introduce a bit of extra texture.

I'm not much of a rhymer, myself.  I do rhyme, from time to time, and it usually comes out about as well as that.  I'm personally more fond of alliteration as a grace note in my poem.  It's an aesthetic preference and not a recommendation.  Most established poetic forms assume an effort at rhyming, so if you want to try your hand at sonnets or ballads or what not, you'll need to make that effort.

Rhymes and alliteration always tend to work best, in my opinion, as reinforcing elements of the rhythm, highlighting beats with their special ability to draw attention to themselves.  It all comes back to rhythm in the end, because rhythm is the life of poetry.  It's the reason people do poetry at all.  

A Voluminous Vocabulary

The poet trades in words, and a clever or unexpected term can easily turn a dull line into an interesting one.  Blessed with a lexicon like ours, an embarrassment of synonyms and rarities, one could say that English-language poets have something of an obligation to reach for the stars and pluck out some choice novelties.  Mindless repetition, after all, is no path to greatness.

Sturdy, common monosyllables are an indispensable part of any English writing.  However, the interesting stress patterns of polysyllables can improve a poem's rhythm.  Rare words can also introduce new possibilities for rhymes when you've grown tired of the obvious ones.  The more words you know, the more choices you have in meeting your poem's peculiar needs.

The inevitable downside?  People don't talk like thesauruses.  That's the reason we have thesauruses in the first place.  If you stuff every line with rare and unwieldy words, your potential readership will dwindle.  If you care about your potential readership (even if it's just you), be sure that your poem is never missing he kind of words that they can actually relate to.

After all, poetry is not just about putting the words in the right order.  Even more basic than that is finding he right word.  Whether it's love or infatuation, you'll want both in your toolbox for the big jobs.

The Personal Touch

English is an international language with a long history.  There isn't anything like an authority on how to pronounce every little word in the language.  And with every language, there is always variation between even individual speakers.  Sometimes you're going to wonder about a word, even on something as basic as the number of syllables.

One ambiguity that I often encounter (and exploit) is "R-breaking".  This is the tendency to pronounce words like "fire" as though they were two syllables.  The trouble is, when I consider the word "fire" in my mind, it doesn't really feel disyllabic. Depending on the circumstances of the poem, I feel perfectly comfortable treating "fire" as either one or two syllables.

These ambiguities extend to things like rhyme and stress.  Does "maw" rhyme with "ma"?  It does if you're me, but the assertion would puzzle many people.  What about the stress on the word "guitar?"  I stress the second syllable, but in some dialects it's common to stress the first. 

Since poetry is perceived as a formal exercize, it is tempting to agonize over proper pronunciations in the pursuit of a perfectly executed meter or a flawless rhyme.  Don't do that!  The best poets write in their own voice, and consequently their usage is always informed by their own dialect.  If a certain pronunciation or grammatical quirk sounds right or natural to you, it is not necessary to break your back in avoiding it.  If you are deliberately writing in a "Standard English" sort of way, it's another story.  But I suspect you'll have more fun with poetry if you write in your own style.

Alternative Approaches

The kind of poetry I've been describing, with meters organized according to stresses and syllables, is not the only kind available.  Bucking this paradigm does not make you an unpoet, nor does it automatically mean your work is worthless.  It just puts you outside the tradition.

The Anglo-Saxon bards, between their hearty quaffs of mead, considered a line of poetry to be well done if it had four prominent stresses, with the first three emphasized by alliteration, and syllable counts be damned.  Conversely, there are poems in Modern English that derive their metrics solely from counting syllables, with little heed to stress.  And of course there's free verse, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

The point is, despite all the blathering I've done thus far on the technical aspects of poetry, you can pretty much do whatever you want.  Other people may not like it, but that doesn't mean it's not poetry.  Bad poetry is still poetry, and since you can follow all the rules and still produce monumentally awful verse, you might as well take some time to test out the boundaries.  

And Now, The Method

There actually isn't any one method I adhere to with any regularity when it comes to writing poems.  Sometimes I just write lines until something like a theme emerges.  Sometimes I build up a structure and fill in the blanks.  Sometimes I just freestyle and hope that no one gets hurt.  

Once you have established your relationship with things like rhythm and form, writing poetry is much the same as writing anything else.  If you have a big message to share with the world, bend the rhythm to suit your message.  If you're only concerned with the rhythm, then don't fret about not having anything deep to say.  Sometimes poetry is about deep thoughts and philosophy.  Sometimes it's about stupid dirty jokes.  Both are fine uses of your time and energy.

Writing poetry is an excellent opportunity to express yourself creatively and to learn more about your language.  There is a lot more to discuss on the subject than the quick and dirty notes I've jotted down here.  For a more competent how-to guide, I recommend Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Traveled.   For advanced studies, of course, there is actual poetry to explore.  Read with your ears, then give it your best shot.

Why I'm quitting drinking

Sure, everyone says it when they've got a bad hangover.  But I'm hoping that by putting it down here, I can demonstrate that it isn't just the hangover talking.

People drink alcohol for a lot of reasons.  Fun, flavor, and chemical dependency all play a role in it.  Another factor is social pressure.  Drinking alcohol is not just something one does in response to one's own body.  It's a performance for an audience.  What and how much you drink is socially determined as much as it is chemically determined.

For a long time, I was very worried that I would become addicted to alcohol.  I grew up with visible examples of alcoholism in my family, and I knew exactly what I never wanted to be.  I passed my 21st birthday with only a few curious sips, a customary can of budweiser (or something), and a sense of moral superiority.  Then came 22, and I compromised.  I learned to drink, and in time I learned to genuinely enjoy it.  But all the while, I worried about what would become of me if I lost control.  And when I did lose control, I spent the next mornings feeling guilty and sick.

As it happens, I became a drinker while living in Oregon, nestled among a fine collection of craft brewing houses.  I learned to savor good taste in beers, and to listen to my body when it started sending me negative messages.  I cut out hard liquor.  I tapered my drinking so that I could enjoy a buzz without succumbing to oblivion.  I did what I could to establish good drinking habits.  Everyone who drinks should do that, but in my case I was motivated by a very immediate kind of fear.

Just as there were alcoholics among my family, I found them among my close friends.  I didn't count myself among them, and I still don't.  But I was afraid, and I started drawing lines in the sand for myself.  I thought I would be safe as long as I observed certain basic rules.  Beyond that, I knew I would be safe if I stayed in control of my drinking.

I've been in South Korea for six months, and right now I don't really feel in control of my drinking.

At first, I thought I could retain control easily enough.  South Korea's beer selection is light on the craft I enjoy and heavy on the cheap, watery business of getting hammered.  I spent my first few months more concerned that I would be deprived of good drink than that I would have too much. 

I found good, imported beer.  I've got four bottles sitting in my refrigerator right now.  They've been sitting there for months because I just don't want them anymore. 

Never undestimate the effect a culture can have on your behavior.  In particular, never underestimate a drinking culture.  This nation may not brew the best, but it loves to consume.  And frankly, the prevailing attitude in the drinking culture of Korea strikes me as suicidal.  When I go out with my boss and my coworkers, I am expected to hurt myself.  I am expected to drink until I can be confident I'll have to throw it all up in the morning.  The pattern has been set.

It is not as if I do this all the time.  In point of fact, I don't go out very often.  I've even been able to dodge these outings a few times.  But you can't dodge them all, and I'm so desperate to avoid offending my boss that I eventually find myself quaffing "somaek" (beer with a soju shot) in perverse tests of manly endurance.  Then I feel euphoric and profoundly unhappy.

This morning, I missed the toilet bowl by a few inches.  A glimpse at my employer's more guarded emotions was not really worth the accompanying feelings of shame and disgust or the fluid on my feet.

You can't just drink slower than everyone else when there's a toast every two minutes.  You can't limit yourself to the quantity you know you can handle when your boss puts a two half liters in front of you and says "one shot".  You can't take it back when you feel yourself cross the line of no return.  It's so hard to say no to a drink when the whole gathering revolves around chicken and drinking.

And to think, all of this is supposed to be a celebration of the end of a stressful week.

I no longer drink because it's been a long day and I'd like a little something to relax.  These days, I drink because a man I don't much care for is trying to raise morale.  And frankly, it's hurting me.  I don't know how else to get out of it except by not drinking anymore.

Last weekend, I went to the hospital for a mandatory examination.  The doctors read my blood, and told me my "liver index" was high.  A followup ultrasound indicated I have the beginnings of Fatty Liver disease.  Whether it's the drinking or my diet that's causing it, I don't know.  But I can feel the pain I'm putting myself through.  And if there's one thing I know I never want to be, it's a patient with cirrhosis or hepatitis.

I thought about moderation.  But I don't really feel like moderation is a valid choice for me here.  Maybe when I'm back in America, and I feel more comfortable setting my own pace, that could change.  Right now, I feel more comfortable going on indefinite hiatus.   I'll give my beers away.  I'll stick to tea.

I've been a drinker for five years because I compromised with social expectations.  Back then, I weighed the risks against a desire to be of the world, not left out of a more-or-less universal custom.  Now, I'm renegotiating the terms of that compromise.  I'm tired of being at war with my body.  I want some control back in my life.

R.E.M. Unplugged

I've been a fan of R.E.M. at least since my Freshman year of college.  Back in my most active period of  album purchasing, I got into the band through Automatic for the People and Out of Time.  I thought they were beautiful records (even if Out of Time is occasionally silly as hell), but lacked the determination to make a full exploration of their catalog.  So those two albums stood alone in my collection, played and enjoyed, but not immoderately so.

Somehow, it wasn't until this year that I became a Fan.  That's a capital F right there, indicating the kind of enthusiast that puts time and energy toward analyzing the history and the psychology behind every track, living in the stories of every album and the musicians who made them.  You can communicate a lot with a capital F.

It wasn't a sudden discovery of the rest of their albums; through the magic of the internet, I'd heard many of them before.  But something really clicked this year.  I was feeling emotionally vulnerable: like so many times before in my life, I sought comfort in old music.   Perhaps it was pure chance, but R.E.M.'s first five albums came through for me in a huge way.  They hit me right in the feelings, and like a baby chick I imprinted on their mumbly jangling with a fierceness.  Now my girlfriend gives me the side eye whenever she hears "Don't Go Back to Rockville", but I'm a happy man with what might be a new favorite band.

And what are the odds, amidst this peculiar eruption of love, that R.E.M. would put out a new live album this year?  Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions  came along a few days ago and gave me another perfect excuse to do exactly what I've been itching to do: gush at length about my new obsession.  

Admittedly, the sound that fired my imagination so hotly was not the acoustic style on display here.  I was more than familiar with R.E.M. in this mode, but it's the electricity of Fables of the Reconstruction and Lifes Rich Pageant that has had me raving in recent days.  At their best, R.E.M. in those years put dynamism alongside mystery in a way that no other band could touch.  They were fast and beautiful and endlessly interpretable.  Best of all, they hit all my musical sweet spots: juicy backing vocals, melodic bass lines, shiny guitar sounds, the works.  The diversity of their sound was always a part of the appeal, but I was certifiably taken with the rock n' roll.

Now, Unplugged has brought me back to the soft embrace of Peter Buck's mandolin.  Put in the context of R.E.M.'s history, this long-delayed live album (or pair of them, if that's how you want to look at things) reveals their real greatness: not a particular set of conventions or instruments, but the overwhelming force of their personalities.  Separated by a decade, both shows are steeped in humanity.  Even when they change the arrangements, R.E.M. never stop sounding honest.

A contemporary of Out of Time, the 1991 concert has its share of goofiness.  They don't come out and play "Shiny Happy People" (thank God), but a few tracks come across as shallow gimmicks without the amplifiers.  "Radio Song" was gimmicky already, but playing it acoustic and sans-rap doesn't do it any real favors (go figure).  Michael Stipe's fake country accent, on the other hand, gives "The End of the World As We Know It" just the right kind of fun to compensate for the lack of watts.  Alongside sublime versions of "Fall On Me" and other songs that fit more comfortably and seriously in an acoustic set, the net effect is fun and warm and impossibly beautiful.

What of the second concert?  Minus Bill Berry and further removed from the band's dashing indie days, I confess I wasn't quite as eager to hear it.  It's too easy to valorize the youth of a band, especially when they visibly slow down in their old age.  Fewer of the 2001 songs sound like experiments (silly or otherwise), because by that time the whole "unplugged" aesthetic had become somewhat closer to R.E.M.'s default sound.  The band was already maturing in 91; they didn't get any younger.  But listening to the songs themselves, I found myself caring less and less.  Rock n' roll may be a special kind of thrill, but you can't really argue with beauty.

Stipe sounds a little more grizzled and old, but it doesn't really change his style that much.  Neither does the band neglect its old material, which is perhaps why Unplugged treats us to two versions of "Losing My Religion".  Concert number two is a much more straightforward affair, more what you might expect from rock stars with acoustic guitars and a mood for contemplation.  It's good that it's so pretty, or that might be the end of the conversation.  R.E.M.'s songs really are that moving, though.  I could listen to "Imitation of Life" for days, and if I get the chance I intend to.

I won't call this album essential, but I will call it a gift from one of the most remarkable bands of their time.  A band that ages as gracefully as this is one for the history books: the sort of thing to pay attention to.  Maybe it's just because I'm getting older, or maybe I've always been too old inside for my own good, but I appreciate that artistry.

Check this one out, reflect on your mortality, and thank someone for all the beauty in this world.  

Keep Cool, Boy

That last post may have come across as angry.  I'm sure it came across as relentlessly sarcastic.  It might even be genuinely offensive.  So rather than let the blog sit on that note, I thought I would try to introduce a little perspective on the matter.

In a way, I regret writing it.  I don't claim to be a sage, but I do believe it's wiser to say nothing when all you want to do is denigrate someone.  It's not just the scatological insults that can cause collateral damage, after all.  If someone truly is a scoundrel, they'll remain so even if you refrain from pointing it out.  Unfortunately,  people do things for other reasons than careful consideration of what is and isn't wise.  Someone in my life has made a mess of things, and I wrote a mean little essay about them.  It's a little childish, but in my defense, so is the whole situation.

The sad truth is, Tara and my adventure in Korea is not going as smoothly as hoped.  You can read about all our troubles on the other blog; I'm not going to rehash them here.  Essentially, we were taken advantage of by people who ought to have known better.  We ought to have known better than to trust them.  Now we are stuck, and will probably have to do something a little crazy to get unstuck.

I'm just glad that, even with all the uncertainty in our lives today, Tara and I still have each other to rely on.  Together, we reaffirm the necessity and the practicability of trust and love, and together we are not afraid.  We'll work something out, and be better (and yes, wiser) for our troubles.

And in the meantime, I have a weekend ahead of me with not much to do.  I think I will make myself feel better by writing something good and worthwhile.  Potty-mouthed catharsis is nice, but it won't stand the test of time.  It's high time for something more sophisticated on this blog.  Something that I can look back on and smile at.  Probably something with less swearing.

English and the Insult

*The following post contains, and indeed dwells considerably upon, profanity*

About a month ago, I had a conversation with a Korean friend of mine concerning the most effective ways to describe a disliked person in English.  Her English was pretty good, and she already had quite a handle on the basics of swearing, letting loose a series of fucks and bastards with righteous fury.  But she seemed dissatisfied with the limitations of English cursing, feeling that these words didn't really get at the heart of why the object of her ire was so detestable.  My helpful suggestions of motherfucker, asshole, and son of a bitch served only to illustrate her point.  American English at least does not have a very extensive list of devastating curses.

Recently, I too have had reason to consider the most effective way to utterly disparage the character of another human being in my native tongue.  It's not surprising really; we've all been in that sort of mood, and it's not really important to know who we're talking about today or what they've done to deserve such infamous treatment.  Trust me when I say that the bastard has earned the abuse.

As a matter of principle, I want to avoid the use of insulting language that derives its impact from racial, sexual, or gender identity, or from mental or physical disability.  I think we're all better than that.  A truly effective, devastating insult should bear on something worthy of insulting: namely, a person's lack of integrity.  I have taken the liberty to compile a short list of terms (with definitions) that I think should be considered more often by Americans in the throes of passionate rage:

Scoundrel: a dishonest or unscrupulous person.
Blackguard: a person, particularly a man, who behaves in a dishonorable or contemptible way.
Heel: an inconsiderate or untrustworthy person.
Punk: someone worthless or unimportant; a hoodlum.
Scum: a low, worthless, or evil person.
Miscreant: a vicious or depraved person.
Reprobate: a depraved, unprincipled, or wicked person.
Dastard: a mean, sneaking coward.

If you ask me, that's a nasty list!  There aren't many people I know who would enjoy being called any of these things.  But they don't really have the weight you'd expect from something as serious as an insult.  They certainly don't feel like real curses, the sort of thing that could get you sent to the principal's office, or thrown out of an especially genteel book club (maybe "scum," but not the rest).  In fact, words like "miscreant" almost sound like the opposite of an insult, the sort of thing an upper class person with delicate sensibilities might say to avoid giving offense.  That's not what I want to do here.  I want to be very offensive.

One common principle of insults seems to be that, in order to truly communicate that someone is detestable, you can't just say that they are.  You have to go beyond saying what they are and make what they are sound like something that no one will ever love, possibly because they are contaminated with some sort of contagious, weaponized germ.

There are some exceptions to this principle.  Calling someone something as simple as coward, thief, or liar can provoke a fistfight under the right conditions.  If the person I wish to insult is a liar (and they are), then it seems like I have a built-in advantage to my quest to be offensive.  The problem is, there aren't many words in English that mean "liar" but can't be spoken in polite company.  Oath breaker?  Dissembler?  Fabulist?  Deceiver?  Maybe if you throw in a good strong "fucking" to carry the load.

Nobody wants to sound unhip while delivering an insult: doing so insults oneself by implication.  I think that's why our pool of insults is so conservative, limited to a few old standbys and some unjust digs at marginalized groups.  Nobody wants to go out on a limb by committing to a word like miscreant if it will be perceived as dated or wimpy.  That's also why nobody avails themselves of classic Shakespearean skewers like "umuzzled tardy-gaited barnacle" or "fobbing whoreson coxcomb."  They may be thoroughly rude, but they're adventurous and untested.  Fucking asshole may be muted, but everyone gets the idea right away.

There is one school of insults in English that remains creative: the scatological insult.  A scatological insult does not really aim to describe its target; rather, it aims to disturb everyone in hearing range with unpleasant images, and the possibilities are positively unbounded.  If a more character-derived insult is something of a dueling sword, then a scatological insult is like some kind of radiological bomb.  My target may be a despicable heel, but I can do more damage to the surrounding environment if I call them a dribbling shitstain.  And sometimes, that's a fine thing to do.

In this case, I think it better to forgo the use of toilet imagery and stick with the descriptive, character-based insult.  In fact, I've decided to go with scoundrel, a word that doesn't get nearly enough serious use in this day and age.  Make no mistake, there are scoundrels among us.  They should be disparaged and degraded, but most of all they should be recognized for what they truly are.