Contemplating August

emersonfortheday.com - web imitating art

2007-11-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

In Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series of novels (Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007)), the website emersonfortheday.com has has a central place in setting the tone of the novel and providing important context for shaping the thoughts and actions of one of the protagonists.

After reading the third book in the series, I finally decided to visit the site to see if it existed, thinking that I, too, could benefit from a daily reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I was pleased to discover that there really was an emersonfortheday.com -- it had been created by one of the series' readers as a tribute to Robinson's work and his message. As the site's creator notes in the site's "about" page: "I decided to make web imitate art."

In a case of the web imitating the web imitating art, there is now also an epictetusfortheday.com site. Since Kim Stanley Robinson's books inspired a real incarnation of the Emerson for the Day site, I imagine that Tom Wolfe's protagonists in A Man in Full could have found an Epictetus for the Day site just as useful in their novel's setting.

The power of allusion in written works

2007-09-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

I was first introduced to Sidney Lanier's (1842-1881) poetry though a book titled Macroscope, written by Piers Anthony in 1969. Anthony's book may have been the first written work to illustrate to me the importance of writers and artists alluding to others' work in their creations. The impact of somone's creative work reverbating in succeding work by others is an important aspect of how art and literary works over time, growing from being isolated ideas expressed by their creators to influencing a society's larger culture. Gordon Dickson, in his book Three to Dorsai! (1975), put forth the concept that societal change often begins as isolated visions that are first expressed by individual artists and writers. The concept behind their creative work, in turn, inspires others, whose collective message is then discovered and embraced by selected elements of their society. From this, ultimately, come the seeds of societal change.

On a more personal scale, I owe discovery of Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer and the group Buena Vista Social Club to Keith Snyder's book Coffin's Got the Dead Guy on the Inside.

Sidney Lanier was a Georgia poet whose work exemplifies the genre of lyrical poetry. A prominent musician and music teacher in his own right, he purposely integrated musical elements into his sound devices and diction.

Here is the first stanza of his 1878 poem, The Marshes of Glynn:

The Marshes of Glynn

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, -
Emerald twilights, -
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; -
...

Sidney Lanier resources:
Biography on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Lanier
"Poems of Sidney Lanier, Edited by his Wife" on Documenting the American South website - http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/lanier1/menu.html

Urban scavenging

2007-09-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Last year, my daily commute included a journey through the usually gridlocked traffic of the Garden Grove Freeway. Major road construction had closed a good number of exits and lanes for a string of impressive engineering projects, and watching all that activity could provide entertainment for the unfortunate motorists who are still stuck on it after running out of snacks, tunes, or cellphone time.

Earlier that year, when construction began in earnest, a small family of vultures began perching themselves mornings and afternoons on the large freeway sign that overlooked all six lanes and studiously craned their necks down at the stalled traffic below. I kept wondering why on earth they were doing that and finally concluded that they must be waiting for a car to die!

Morning aftermath

2007-09-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

Nelson DeMille, in his book Up Country, wisely said that when a man has been drinking, he should never be near any communication devices...no e-mail, no telephone, no fax machines, nothing. I've been promising myself to follow his advice, but so far, it hasn't happened. As a result, I always dread looking at the "sent" box of my e-mail the next morning, but the excitement does add a rush to the waking-up process.

The important things

2006-10-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

As I was returning from the beach, just ahead of me I found a couple going up the stairs that lead to the top of the bluffs. Although they were relatively young, my impression was that they had been together for a while. That afternoon, they had been flying a kite in the shape and colors of a large, red butterfly, because that was what he was carefully carrying up the stairs. Toward the top, she leaped ahead of him, and in a burst of laughing exuberance climbed up the rest of the way ahead of him. I pictured how he might then remember first meeting her, how he might well have fallen in love with her upon first discovering that vibrant energy she exuded, graceful like a dancer, at totally unexpected times.

I followed them past the top of the stairs onto the bluff, he with the butterfly kite, she with hair golden in the evening sun, and I remembered a woman I loved once, and the same evening sun on her hair and how I later regretted ever letting her go...but she had lived a continent away and, at that time, I thought I had no choice. They were walking side by side, hands almost touching, and my thoughts urged him to take her hand, because life is short and affection should be shown. Their hands kept missing each other as they walked, but he finally put his arm around her, so I was satisfied that that was good enough. They were talking about things people who have been married a while, but who are still young, talk about: things they wanted to buy someday, things they needed now. It would be a while, I thought, before they would discover the really important things, the cherished things, like that memory of their walks together, with their kite in the evening sun. My thoughts having run their course, I passed by them. "Beautiful kite!", I said.

More on "writer's mediation"

2006-06-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

Since this blog is about the process of writing, particularly poetry, I wanted to revisit my blog entry from last year about Gail Sher's book titled One Continuous Mistake - Four Noble Truths for Writers. The Four Noble Truths she refers to are:

1. Writers write.
2. Writing is a process.
3. You don't know what your writing will be until the end of the process.
4. If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is to not write.

It's my belief that writing regularly is important, whether it's a form of recreation or a profession. I do both, but I don't find it too unpleasant...actually I could do it all day and often do. The hard part for me and maybe for others (and the reason I'm writing this) is to write as part of a recreational regimen, like exercise, meditation or reading. Darn, it takes discipline! Some days I have to force myself to give myself the gift of "recreational creativity" - getting my butt and my notepad outside when I'd rather be doing something "more important", to quiet the "thoughtmonkeys" that squawk about everything that I need to do, and to just write creatively.

I think this applies whether writing a poem pulled out of nowhere or a painstakingly researched novel that starts with writing the first chapter the way the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. The practice starts with doing it. So I keep telling myself when I drag my sometimes unwilling carcass to the notepad. The nice thing is that even if I end up with a few lines of something worthwhile, it's my incentive to keep doing it.

My advice is to not approach your "creative time" with expectations. Only then can you surprise yourself.

Here are a few quick pieces I ended up with even during those times I couldn't come up with anything more involved:

If we could only fathom what a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience life is, perhaps we would pay more attention to it.

young woman on cell phone
not available
for conversation

Rooflines
play hide and seek
behind swaying palm trees

This butterfly
can’t decide
which flower to land on

Telephone wires -
birds’ bellies
colored by the evening sun

On its side –
a toy boat
in a drained bathtub

evening trees
etched by
crows' calls

thoughts on the concept of work

2006-06-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

I have always been fascinated by how people work (or fail to work) together, both as a writer and as someone getting his graduate degree in Organizational Change. Here are some assorted tidbits on the subject that I've scribbled down over the years:

Work can be thought of as the process of overcoming inertia - whether it's hefting steel beams or just wrestling the unwieldly structure of your organization.

A friend of mine works at a large defense contractor. Like many other bureacratic institutions, it seems to be very difficult to get anything changed there. She call it "getting the elephant to dance."

Never underestimate the obstacles any halfway organized society or group of people can throw in your way.

Parkinson's Law, a term developed by British historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson from his lighthearted observations of politics, states that work expands to fill the time available.

On the practical side, one of the most useful definitions of work comes from a grocery store manager I once knew: "When you're at work, you have to work! That's why they call it work!"

Then there was Howard, the twenty-something manager of the car wash where I worked during high school. His motivational speech for our benefit before every shift was "Don't you f**** up this time!"

A new poetry resource

2006-06-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

I recently received an email from Diana Collins, one of the founders of Famous Poets and Poems, kindly thanking me for maintaining a blog where people can learn something new and useful about poetry.

I never thought of my blog teaching something new and useful about poetry, other than sharing those myriad sights, sounds and thoughts that this elusive creature I call the "creative self" eventually turns into poems. Along with what I hope will eventually be poems. You can always read the finished products on the main Contemplating August site.

Diana's email made me realize two things:

First, she and fellow poetry fans Helen Jaworski and and Monica Vesela have created a very nicely done poetry resouce of over 500 poets and 20,000 poems, along with poets' biographies and pictures. (I have been lamenting the dearth of classic and modern poetry reference sites, increasingly abandoned for poetry contests and posting-communities which generate more traffic, the basic staple of web-dom.)
Second, maybe there's more that I can do to teach my readers about poetry, particularly the technical elements that every poet should at least know...even if they choose to ignore them (and they can, as long as they know what those elements are.) A sort of "Poetry 101." Since I've done this in e-mail form before, I'm motivated to take on the challenge of putting together a primer on poetic elements. I've started on Lecture 1, which will be out soon. Thanks, Diana!

a difficult trade arrangement

2006-06-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

I am fortunate that my workplace is a large, campus-like settings, with lots of grassy, open spaces and trees. Birds, of course, like it too, and there are large numbers of mocking birds, greckels and sparrows, plus the occasional crow flying by. I happen to like crows for their entertainment value and feel that this place needs more of them. So, while feeding a group of several dozen sparrows, I began wondering how many sparrows I'd need to trade for each crow. A exchange-rate of sorts, like currency. Like any simple question, there can be complex philosophical ramifications. Exchange, after all, implies compensation, which requires an owner. But since autonomous living beings have no owner (other than themselves), and I didn't want to get metaphysical, I had to conclude this mental exercise with the thought that there was no one to arrange a trade with...the sparrows and crows certainly seemed content with the present arrangement, so that settled the matter.

A picnic bench in a construction site

2006-06-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

Lunch with trucks -
large steel creatures
tiptoeing noisily,
their deliberate slowness
even more menacing

Musings from the gym

2006-06-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

For about a year or so, I've been keeping a workout diary to keep track of my progress at the gym. It's a 6x4" memo book, perfect for keeping in my pocket. Since it's always handy, I've also found it a great tool for writing down thoughts while I'm riding my bike to/from the gym or while I'm there. Some of them later turn into poems or articles. I recently dug through a number of the little books to see if any of the thoughts might be worth sharing.

June 2006:

The power of unthorough observation: Arriving at the gym, I saw a tall, scrawny guy with a thoroughly unkempt beard working out diligently at the various exercise machines. When I left, I ran into a tall, less scrawny guy with a neater beard. Not bothering with details like confirming it was the same guy, I concluded that spending time in the gym really works. Results from statistics and research probably probably work like that, too, sometimes.

I find myself awed by nature, every time without fail. We are nature too, despite our antics of civilization and technology. I find it impossible to separate us from it.

Nature was the first modeler of art. We created our own art in our desire to possess a facsimile.

May 2006:

At my gym, I saw a woman wearing many adornments, particularly a prominent collection of diamond engagement rings worn on many fingers, but not on her ring finger. I retreated hurriedly, her display reminding me of a collection of staked skulls displayed outside the village to frighten away intruders. Fear of meeting a similar fate is a strong deterrent in any situation!

For some surely important reason, I watched a TV program about the loss of fertility in women as the age. According to the program, by age 45, there is a less than 1% chance of a woman conceiving, because those little eggs are just tired. The next morning in the gym I noticed a very athletic young woman in her 20s working out on a treadmill for what seemed like hours. I couldn't help picturing her eggs just bounding with energy! For the the rest of my workout, I caught myself speculating about the condition of the eggs of the women in my gym. If the producers of that program only knew how much influence TV can have.

If crows were $2 each, I'd probably buy several. Something would probably have to be done about storing them safely, though.

May 2006:

I did an hour's worth of cardio on this one machine. When I was done, two hours had passed. I never could figure out how the heck I did that.

A Stairmaster is a mechanical manifestation of Zen practice. Each moment is a separate universe of "now" that seemingly stretches on forever. Especially on the higher settings. If only moments not spent on the Stairmaster could be that timeless.

February 2006:

I've gotten used to seagulls dropping shells on the bike path, since it cracks them open and saves wear and tear on their beaks. This morning, however they were dropping bread on the path! Someone's going to have to coach them. And their flying is off, too!

September 2005: Grad school gets long...

Designing job performance evaluations for crows. How would they differ from evaluations for seagulls?

Several years into grad school, I increasingly remind myself of the corner of 7th & Redondo Avenue where crews are always working on something: Great if ever finished, but always under construction.

At the gym:
Drinking water and missing my mouth...
Humanness: A Flawed Tool
Doing squats in the "cage", others looking on: Am I the lion, or the monkey?

July 2005:

In the garage
the body heat
of cars

Summer skin: The wind on my thighs.

Office Plaza, weekdays:
Paths crossing like insects,
drawing nectar from the same flower
over and over

May 2005:

I went to run the stairs, and found the customary group of pigeons at the bottom, pecking for food in the sand. Since they're always there, I now call them "The Eternal Birdfaces." Hard exertion can do neat things to inspiration!

April 2005:

Dragging the tired carcass into the gym: The purpose for exercise could be the joy in using my body. Now that's a novel thought!

Copyright violations - my work...with someone else's name on it

2006-05-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but I have to admit it feels strange to discover my work in an online publication with someone else's name on it...in this case, someone posting on Authors Den. Although she changed the titles and rearranged an apostrophe or two, she kept the rest of my work essentially intact - just with her copyright at the bottom of it.

The full story is available in the Poets Against Plagiarism Blog (see link at right), now resolved thanks to the help of Pris Campbell and Kevin Doran who started the blog as a way to publicize the issue of plagiarism and copyright violations in the on-line environment we now increasingly publish in. Our thought was to dissiminate information on writers' rights and remedies, as well as publicize the actions of those who violate those rights. Since blogs' contents are readily picked up by search engines, publicizing the names of those who steal the work of others' could be an effective first step in getting them to think twice before doing it. Especially since on-line publications may be leery of publishing their future work. We also saw the process of creating awareness an important first step in inviting publishers to create and post formal policies on plagiarism and copyright violations by their contributors.

Epictetus on the Art of Living

2005-08-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

This spring, I took a class titled Organizational Dynamics and Leading Change in Organizations, taught by Vance Caesar. I thought it wonderful that Pepperdine University would take the contents of his executive coaching sessions and turn them into a graduate course.

One of the key concepts taught in the class was that we had to be able to change ourselves before we could ever ask those around us to change, and much of our learning experiences had to do with facing our own selves - an eye-opening and sometimes painful process.

Vance's parting gift for each of us at the end of the class was a book on Epictetus' teachings in a wonderful translation by Sharon Lebell, titled the art of living - Epictetus. Although I have been an adherent of Stoic philosophy for many years before this, I had primarily viewed the philosophy's teachings to result in "stoically" enduring whatever life threw at me, a stark discipline to be practiced without joy. One of the wonderful realizations after immersing myself in Stoic Philosophy was its many parallels with Eastern philosophies, while, at the same time, focusing on "tactical" issues: If I persist in a way of "being", how would that manifest itself in my "doing"?

Here is an excerpt:

Create Your Own Merit

Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!

Create your own merit.

Personal merit cannot be achieved through our associations with people of excellence. You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with who is watching you.

Do your own useful work without regard to the honor or admiration your efforts might win from others. There is no such thing as vicarious merit.

Other people's triumphs and excellences belong to them. Likewise, your possessions may have excellence, but you yourself don't derive excellence from them.

Think about it: What is really your own? The use you make of your ideas, resources, and opportunities that come your way. Do you have books? Read them. Learn from them. Apply their wisdom. Do you have specialized knowledge? Put it to its full and good use. Do you have tools? Get them out and build or repair things with them. Do you have a good idea? Follow up and follow through on it. Make the most of what you've got and what is actually yours.

You can be justifiably happy with yourself and at ease when you've harmonized your actions with nature by recognizing what truly is your own.

Epictetus resources: http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/ethicsbook/c5057.html
Epictetus works: http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index-Epictetus.html

Sharon Lebell - the art of living - Epictetus - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006251346X/qid=1124164933/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-2871787-9172860?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Vance Caesar - http://www.vancecaesar.com/

Escaping writing

2005-08-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

I had been writing a paper on Interviewing & Counseling practices, a ten hour-a-day process for the last two days and felt the urgent need to write...something different than that. I wonder what other writers do to take a break from writing.

Last week, while helping a friend who owns a landscaping company in the San Fernando Valley, I found myself spending an afternoon trimming rose bushes. The sun was an intense presence, under which the rose bushes and I shared our common frailty as living things. Pruning shears in hand, I recalled the myth of the Three Fates, one measuring, one holding, and one cutting the thread of life. As dead rose petals littered the ground, I silently wondered about this experience of measuring and cutting life. Who is measuring mine right now?

Gardening

Pruning the rosebush
the ache of the summer heat
on my shoulders,
the feel of the living stalk
between fingers,
petals - one, another,
then another
seek ground, life
not strong enough to hold on.

Whether it's blood
or petals, the gift
of time is a thread
I stand on,
feet covered
in the soft
broken soil,
shears meet
the slight resistance
of a living thing.

© Jonathan Bohrn (2005)

Some time before, while visiting the beach, I found a seagull lying in the sand. Coming upon it, it seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but it never moved. Looking at it closely, I concluded that it must have died recently, and since this was the closest I was ever going to get to a seagull, I touched it. It was still warm, and its feathers felt very soft. I ended up carrying it to a sand dune in order to bury it, feeling the weight of its body in my hands. It was surprisingly heavy, and, I thought, beautifully made. As its eyes were still clear, I just couldn't get myself to throw sand on them, instead, finding a palm leaf to cover its head with first. It seemed somehow inappropriate to just walk off afterwards, so I stood by the makeshift grave and said a prayer...not a religious incantation, but an acknowledgment of life and our shared impermanence - offered by one creature to another.

Limitations #3
AD
Alexandra Ekkelenkamp

before whose time
am I alive

will I be a haunting spirit
looking
over brilliant shoulders

will I copy poetry
in chimney dust
dating it _______73 yrs after me

© Alexandra Ekkelenkamp

Alexandra's web site, identity, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/alexandraekkelenkamp/

Putting off inspiration

2005-08-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I woke up with the image of two rivers in my mind, their flow to the ocean along parallel courses, yet never joining.

Fellow travellers, they could share many experiences...the wild rush of water through canyons, the mysterious beauty of subdued light in their depths, the tediousness of sharp rocks that must patiently be worn down to feel comfortable, the feel of small feet splashing along their shores on hot summer days days, and that inexorable pull, silent passion, during their separate journeys to their ocean. In my thoughts as an observer, my own sadness, realizing that each of them has no knowledge of the other's currents coursing a just a short distance from the other. In my mind, I recited the first stanza of what I wanted to write...it seemed indelible then, and I was so sure that I would remember it no matter what would happen during the day, so I didn't take the time to write it down since I had to study for a class.

Of course, a few hours later, the words had vanished. I consoled myself that the original thought was still there somewhere, and that I would find new words to express it again at some future time. Lesson learned, and I'm sharing this with ALL writers...to write this stuff down WHEN I think of it, as I won't remember it later, no matter how much I think that I will. :-)

Medi(t)ation

I have taken refuge
in the resolution of conflict,
the camel’s wet nose slipping
between soft tent folds

Forcefully, he slams
the door in what he
intends to be
her face
caught just in time
by the heel of her
sandaled foot, she
laughs, the sound of
red petals breaking
their back on the floor

The writer, tired
decides now
to sleep
before writing down
her next thoughts

As if she could re-
create
inspiration later!

© Jonathan Bohrn (2005)

Haiku in English: Lost in translation, but still nice

2005-08-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

I've found tremendous differences in how classic Haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) read in English, depending on who translates them. What emerges from the translation is essentially a three-line poem, as the pictoral aspects of kanji can't be adequately translated anyway.

My favorite versions are by California Poet Laureate Robert Hass, whose book, The Essential Haiku, has spoiled me to the point where I've ended up returning translations by other writers, because they felt stilted by comparison.

Still, I had never realized how much of the original meaning any English translation, no matter how good, is bound to lose until I quoted some of my favorites to my friend Michiko. She did not recognize them. I told her they were translations of Basho. "Oh, The Ancient One!", she said, smiling. "We studied him in school in Japan!" She did find the translations pleasant, even if they were no longer Haiku by Japanese standards.

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

Another year gone--
hat in hand,
sandals on my feet.

A cold rain starting
and no hat--
so?

Singing, flying, singing
the cuckoo
keeps busy.

When the winter crysanthemums go
there's nothing to write about
but radishes.

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

Climb Mount Fuji,
O snail,
but slowly, slowly.

Moon, plum blossoms,
this, that,
and the day goes.

O owl!
make some other face.
This is spring rain.

The Essential Haiku at amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0880013516/qid=1123623435/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-2871787-9172860?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

2005-08-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

Thoughts while running up and down the stairs to the beach:

There was a man who sat by the ocean watching a beautiful sunset. "I cannot stay" he thought to himself, "I have to return home and finish the list of things I have to do so I can have time to watch the sunset." And with that, he left.

Oceanside II (Colors)

Standing alone by the ocean
at twilight I watched
as the colors of waves
and the evening sky became one
in a dusky lilac and blue --
The only thing that was different then
between sand and the waves and the sky
was then no longer colors
but a difference of textures;
and it occurred to me then
that everything we, beloved and I
disagree and fight on at times
is really the same, so why don't we just see
our lives as a difference of textures.
and I realized then, my brother and I,
I can no longer fight you, it's not worth this hatred
we're just really not that much different at all.
But I did not have for this new idea
a pencil or paper to write on;
so I scratched it in sand,
and then after the tide
had come and had washed it away,
inspiration had left, I'd forgotten my thoughts
and my world is now still as it was…

© Jon Bohrn (1998)

Important for birds: Whether you have flipper feet or claw feet, it's important, either way, to tuck them in neatly while flying.

seagull

Throw
yourself to the sky,
your perspective
blue-and-white spaces
your time
a next meal
bitterly fought for
and I wonder
who in your flock
watches out for you.

© Jon Bohrn (2003)

Of writers and writing

2005-08-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

A friend recently lent me a book titled One Continuous Mistake - Four Noble Truths for Writers, written by Gail Sher. The Four Noble Truths she refers to are:

1. Writers write.
2. Writing is a process.
3. You don't know what your writing will be until the end of the process.
4. If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is to not write.

Reading through the first section, she reminds me of something that used to be a great source of joy for me when I was a "young" writer, but which I need to revisit: The habit of sitting down to the act of writing regularly (mindfully is another word that applies), regardless of whether or not something productive actually comes from it during any one session.

I chose poetry as my medium for creativity in 1995. I thought then that it would be easy to just throw a salad of words onto that blank platter, and voila, a poem...no more days spent in the darkroom developing photographs or making video documentaries.

Needless to say, I learned very quickly that it wasn't as easy as all that, and most of my early work was simply terrible. But I kept writing and writing. I wrote nights, I wrote weekends. I think I wrote over three hundred poems in that first year. I knew I had found my passion because no matter how disappointed I was in some of what I wrote, I could find some tiny spark in it that encouraged me to go on and write more. I was hooked...I just couldn't stop. To this day, I still write a large number of stillborn poems (I call them my beautiful, crippled children), but some of what I learn through them (and some of their subject matter) I revisit months or years later when I have a different perspective, and more skill to give to them. Some poets tweak their old poems...I usually just start a new one.

What also inspired me was the work of one of my favorite Haiku poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827...my favorite translations are by Poet Laureate Robert Hass.) It has been said that Issa wrote over 20,000 Haiku, many of which were reputed to be simply terrible. But since he wrote incessantly, the remainder of his work was what characterized him as one of the most notable poets of this genre.

Better than a guest book...

2005-08-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

I wanted to find a better way of making the Contemplating August site interactive than the previous method of a "news" page and a guest book. So now comes the question of how to use a blog to best augment the site. So many possibilities, never enough time...

the writer, a cynic

A blank page
frightens me:
so many thoughts
so many ideas
I could put there --
Is it legal to put
such a weapon as this
in my hand?
Deep fears
dark dreams
confused radical thoughts
without shame:
I can write it,
there's room on this page
and my pencil, I think,
should last long enough
to offend.

© Jon Bohrn (1998)