Congratulations, Hoss!

Meredith and I are trying to get the toddler to sleep in his own bed. The evening was quite comical, involving craning my neck to listen closely through the static of a baby monitor, running into said toddler in the middle of the night wandering the hallways, sleeping in a tiny bed, sleeping on the floor, sleeping on the floor holding the toddler's hands, holding the three-month-old while Meredith put the toddler to bed . . .

Parents, don't co-sleep. Ever.

***

I am tired and delirious.

***

My folks stopped by yesterday because they wanted to get a look at our yard. There's not much to look at. It's just an old dusty patch of dirt where once was a tangled mass of trees and weeds. It's almost lawn-ready, but we're holding off until near fall, when we won't need to water.

In the meantime, I've got a full slate of projects. I've got to repaint our weathered and worn deck before my kid gets big splinters. I've got to frame out some stairs for the side yard. I've got to prune some hedges. Oh, home ownership, why are you so hard?

***

I was recently asked to contribute work for a special section in a journal. I'm usually quite good at responding to personal prompts, but I've always had trouble when responding to prompts from someone else. Anyway, the poem got written, but it was a struggle. How about you? Do you respond well to writing prompts? What's strange is that's all I give my students--I make them write in response to a prompt.

***

I "secretly" saw Inception. (Meredith's not supposed to know that I went to a movie without her. SHhhhhhH!)  I think Christopher Nolan is an interesting director . . . one of my favorites. And he seems really interested in how memory shapes his characters--drives their ambitions, their rages, their dreams. I'd argue even the Batman movies he's filmed deal with this subject. I may have to see Inception again . . .

***

The etc. is this: Current Spin:

Just curious. This is my bedside table. I've got stacks of books, but you'll notice no poetry books. There's a simple reason for this . . . I can't read poetry before bedtime. It requires far too much concentration. All my poetry books are split between my office at work and my home office.

I've got a lot of fiction on the table because I tend to read fiction during the summer (the only time I really have any sustained amount of time for reading).

Also note the sippy cup. I'm still co-sleeping with the two-year-old. Parents with new babies, don't do this.

The ear plugs are a need. I started the habit in college and now I can't sleep without 'em. (If you must know, I had a roommate who snored heavily . . . now I wake up at the slightest sound.)

The "line" journal is something I always carry when I read something. I jot down lines, words, sentences, sometimes paragraphs that strike me. This particular line journal has multi-colored pages and a few drawings and mementos from a trip to Spain and Morrocco a few years ago.

**ADDENDUM: Under the sippy cup is the children's book, Ollie, by Olivier Dunbar. And the book mark under Benjamin Percy's book is from Changing Hands Bookstore in Arizona (where a large portion of my library was created).

Please also note the wall. Before, that wall was a wood panelled one. I did the drywall job and I'm quite proud of the work.

So . . . what's on your bedside table?

I've listened to it a few times. Do I like it? I'm not sure, but I know this--she's experimenting with her genre and her aesthetic, and for that I commend her. I think even the folks at Pitchfork acknowledge where M.I.A. is in her career when they say "It's not exactly a surprise that M.I.A. would opt to create such an off-putting and anti-pop album at this point in her career. She may be reaching for an interesting and provocative style . . ."

Still, they're calling the album a "misstep." Myself, I don't think it's a misstep, but rather a natural movement whose modus infuses politics with hypnotic beats. Now that she has an audience, perhaps she's seeing how far they will go with her into her aesthetic space.

Of course, I draw analogies to the growth of an author--the changes that SHOULD occur in their aesthetics over time, or the ways in which they SHOULD wish to challenge both themselves and their audiences. I like M.I.A.'s lack of compromise. She did NOT want to make a "pop" album, and it shows. Rather, we get a mash of heavy and aggressive metal/industrial/electronica with a Reggaeton/hip-hop back beat that's a bit sped up. All of it is tonally in your face which, to my mind, is a brilliantly daring challenge to purported "fans" who liked her "Paper Planes" song but merely liked it for its catchy beat.

***

Speaking of challenging one's aesthetics, I've been reading a lot of short stories lately. I just finished Anthony Doerr's title story of his new collection, Memory Wall, and it was a good one. I'm surprised by both his economy and how he can so cover so much territory in very few pages. The secrets of the past, memory, and the night time initially confuse, but as you stick with it, the payoff of the story is grand. I had trouble sleeping after I finished the story because I kept thinking about his style and how I want to be Anthony Doerr when I grow up.

***

I have one week left before the end of my summer class and I'm so ready to have a break. I've mentioned this before, but I have two projects that I want to finish this year and one that I want to revive. I plan on applying for sabbatical for next year, so it's important for me to get started on these manuscripts. Every August I try to write a poem a day. I intend to perform the same exercise this year. I can't wait.

***

Current Spin:

Bet you thought it would be M.I.A. Nope.

These are Rainier Cherries and they're very ripe. L kept begging for some, but he only liked squeezing out the pits.

***

Thanks to all who wrote words of sympathy here, on Twitter, and on Facebook. Jake was old . . . roughly fourteen years old.

A little about him so that you know what kind of a fellow he was . . . Meredith adopted him when he was six after having passed through a few owners who couldn't handle him. His first owner passed away while Jake was in his care and he was trapped in the house with his dead owner for three days. I think he was traumatized a bit from the experience.

When Meredith adopted him, he was grossly overweight, weighing about 95 pounds. Male German Shorthair Pointers should weigh between 55 and 70 pounds. So we ran him. We ran him a lot. When we lived in Upstate NY, there were several parks where we'd take him off lead. He loved to swim, too, so we took every opportunity to take him to a lake or a reservoir.

After we bought our house in Washington, he had about 7 acres . . . all his. So, he had a good life. He'd wander into an occasional skunk, dig up the occasional bone, and go through the occasional garbage can, but on the whole his bark was worse than his bite (he never bit anyone).

Before we had our first son, we were worried that the dog would have problems with his new status. Of course, our concerns were unfounded.

We've told our son that his dog has passed away, even though our son is only a toddler and probably doesn't understand such things. I sure don't.

There are times at night when it's so quiet in the spaces where he once slept. And the quietest places are often, strangely, the loudest sounds.

I did have a dream about him the other night. His fur was wet, as if he had been swimming, and he was running like he always did, a few yards ahead. In life, he always made sure to come back, but in the dream he kept running.

***

Jake:  1996-2010

ODE TO DOGS by Michael Meyerhofer

I am tired of hearing about dogs

used as metaphors for the uncivilized.

Imagine a world in which humans

possessed at least twenty times

as many olfactory receptors,

able to distinguish the tang of cancer

rising musk-like from the bedsheets

next to a smoldering ash tray,

able to detect that one drop of blood

in every five quarts of water,

to know what you did last night

no matter how many times

you soap-scrubbed the evidence.

It does not take savagery

but more love than we can muster

to lick the hand you've sniffed,

to love despite the perfume of sins

we wear each day like a halo.

They are not lawn ornaments. They are real.

***

I'll be teaching my students the villanelle today . . . rather, my students will be learning about the villanelle and I will show them examples of various villanelles that are effectively using the form.

I have crafted a handful of villanelles in my writing lifetime and they all stink, so with all things like this, I am reasonably concerned about how to go about this endeavor.

They've been really keen with the forms, my students. One of them asked, after showing them examples of well-known poets who broke form, what's the point of writing the form if they're going to break it so severely (I'm paraphrasing, of course). Well, what is the point? My own thoughts--it's important to own the form. Don't let the form own you. If you need the initial scaffolding of, say a pantoum in this particular example, then recognize what the pantoum provides but don't limit what you can provide.

***

Our dog, Jake, is very sick. Here is a recent picture of the distinguished gentleman:

Our kids (well, at least one of them) loves him, but right now, we know he's been severely hobbling around. Sometimes when we take him out for a walk, he'll lose his balance and drag his hind legs. He's putting extra weight on his front paws and it looks like one of his shoulders is giving out. His teeth are rotting and his eyesight is gone. And just recently he's been displaying incontinence. This last bit is definitely surprising to us. Jake would howl and cry before even thinking about going to the bathroom in the house, but now . . . now I just think he can't keep it together any longer. Oh, poor Jake.

***

Melody Gee, a Kundiman fellow, has a new book out with Perugia Press entitled Each Crumbling House. It's a lovely book and you should pick up a copy.

Other good news for Kundiman fellows--Matthew Olzmann recently won a Kresge Arts Fellowship!

***

To Do: Install parents' towel rack, patch drywall, tighten toilet roll holder, trim parents' shrubs. Notice that all this stuff is for my parents. So, yes we get babysitting, but it's not free. I have to do the IT stuff with their lousy computers AND I have to do all their home repairs. I am an ungrateful son.

***
Current Spin:

A cover of Animal Collective's "My Boys."

They're very very different types of pieces. Have a look!