All of the Above

Clowns

2010-10-04T23:06:00.003-04:00

The clown seems to have some large cultural significance here in Brazil. Often cell phone stores and other businesses hire clowns to pass out pamphlets and coupons on the street. And the other day, while trying to compose an email, I was distracted by a persistent whistle coming from the street. When I went outside to discover the cause, I saw a clown holding a big red banner. He was campaigning for some local politician. Politics reduced to the circus--literally.

Dusting off the horn...

2010-10-04T23:02:00.003-04:00

I didn't take the time to celebrate the latest issue of The Dark Horse here when it first came out. I was happy to see that Poetry Daily featured one of its essays some weeks ago, namely Rory Waterman's review of William Logan which is not to be missed. If you haven't, you should pick up a copy of it. A couple of my poems made it into this edition. My copy is waiting for me in the States. Otherwise, I would find more to comment on. The website offers a lot of choice content as appetizers.

Toot.

Be Where You Are

2010-09-27T14:57:00.004-04:00

We are leaving Brazil this year. I had hoped to stay until June or July of 2011, but my plan had been to visit home in December, return in January, then return again in the summer, and all of that adds up to a tidy sum. We are already half-broke as it is. Dealing with the rigmarole of securing my papers gave me enough frustration not to regret the decision to leave early. I have only just now secured my permanent residency visa. (Actually, I have a slip of paper that endows me with the same rights as the visa, but the visa itself won't be available until December or January--I may or may not be able to retrieve it before leaving.) The entire ordeal has been enough to make the U.S. DMV seem like the ideal of competence and expediency. But I don't want to complain any further. There is a lot about living here, especially on a tight budget, that can make you grind your teeth to the very roots, but there is a hell of a lot of good here, too. Today I made a point to take it in. I haven't done anything special. Mostly I have stood on the balcony of our apartment, drinking coffee, watching the clouds pass over the hills, and watching the people as they walk along the street going about their business.

Whenever I get set to move I have a hard time being where I am. I'm like Kramer on Seinfeld, about to move to L.A., pointing to his head, telling George, "Up here, I'm already gone."

I have designs on graduate school, and have started the application process by taking the GRE, which I took at an English school in nearby Recife. In the coming weeks I will compose my statements of intent, writing samples, etc. If I get a good offer, and that's only if I get accepted at all, we will end up either in Texas, or back in Boston.

Boston conjures a great deal of saudade and homesickness. When I moved there, I met a lot of people around my age who had lived there for some time, all of them sick of Boston (they came from all over the country). When I left, I was tired of administrative work but I was not at all beginning to tire of the city. Indeed, I wasn't taking advantage of all it had to offer. I went to the Symphony only once, and then it was a weekend event mainly geared toward children. I attended one opera, and one play, my three years there. That is a disgrace.

So, if we land in Boston next year, I already have an itinerary of things to do if time and money permit. If we end up in another city, then I will have a lot of exploring to do. Either option promises so much excitement that I forget to take advantage of the good times on offer here.

My Portuguese is now pretty passable. I continue to note improvements with comprehension, and sometimes if I'm leaving a message on the phone I hear myself speaking muito rapido and wonder, for a moment, who the hell I am to be speaking so fast. My facility with the language leaves much to be desired, and I continue to work on it, but I remind myself that learning the language wasn't truly my primary reason for moving here. I moved here to get experience teaching, to learn if this is something I would like to do. Happily, it is something I enjoy very much. Bad days, it's more than bearable. On good days, I leave the classroom utterly elated and satisfied. I haven't liked a job like this since I worked as a DJ at a small AM station, where I spent my Saturday and Sunday afternoons in my last years of high school listening to oldies, making announcements every half hour or so, and reading poetry and fiction. Indeed, I thought of a career in broadcasting when I first entered college, but in my first poetry workshop I realized that my calling was something altogether different.

The other reason for moving here was to have more time to write. I've accumulated quite a collection of drafts that I am proud of. How they measure up to everything else out there is hard to say, but I have done some of my best work here, and I have my free time to thank for it.

I hope to post on this blog more often. Until then, vá com Deus, caros amigos.

Language and Concept

2010-08-30T20:34:00.003-04:00

Very intriguing article in the NYT on the subject.

I've been a very bad blogger lately. Will update this thing as soon as I can.

Ainda estou com a testa sangrando

2010-07-25T14:57:00.002-04:00

There is an expression in Portuguese, Estar com a testa sangrando, to be with a bleeding forehead. If someone says something particularly snarky, or makes a quick and witty comeback, it's a blow that leaves your forehead bleeding. It's used in the same way as the American-English expression, "Oh snap!" Or "you got served."

I learned this expression today while repeating one of my favorite stories about Bebel, or Maria Isabel, my niece. She's just turned five. One night we were at dinner with her and a bunch of other family members. Someone commented that Bebel falta educação, that is, she lacks manners. Wanting to try out my Portuguese, I turned to her and, with a mouthful of french fries, said, "So, you don't have manners, Bebel?" Without missing a beat, she rolled her eyes and and with an exasperated sigh, replied, Não falo com boca cheia -- "I don't speak with my mouth full."

My forehead is still bleeding from that one.

Fundamentalists

2010-07-08T12:26:00.004-04:00

I was reading Don Share's comments regarding Ron Silliman's take on W.S. Merwin being named the new poet laureate, when it occurred to me that the poetry world is stricken with fundamentalism.

What brought me to that conclusion is the last sentence of Share's entry:

I always get a kick in the pants for espousing the eclectic, but if appreciating and nurturing the many conflicting textures of our poetry isn't consistent with the best dreams we can have for this country overall, then what is?

Kicked, that is, for suggesting that one keep an open mind. I can clearly see people taking Share to task for supporting various types of poetry (or poetries, which seems to be the going phrase today). This is the kind of behavior I witnessed growing up, when I was told on a number of occasions that having an open mind meant leaving yourself open for Satan's influence and an eternal life of damnation. That's the kind of talk that's meant to keep you in your pew and your money in the offering plate.

But eclecticism isn't solely about keeping an open mind. It means that one derives one's ideas and tastes from a broad number of sources, subscribing wholly to none in particular. It is to think for oneself, disregarding the mandates of this or that school or authority. The so-called Christian attitudes and beliefs I observed growing up were based on authority. To end any argument, all one had to do was recite the appropriate scripture. Case closed. God said it, end of story. Again, it was about keeping that butt in the pew, but it was also about maintaining the strength of the group. It doesn't take much knowledge of the poetry world (and I'm not as well-versed in the various contemporary scenes as I'd like to be) to see a parallel between this kind of "us vs. the world" mentality and the various camps, sects, and factions of Poetry.

Years ago I participated in workshops at the Frost Place and at West Chester, and thoroughly enjoyed both. In one of my first Frost Place workshops, the leader begged me not "to become one of those neo-formalists." At the time I had been reading much of what is called the "New Formalist" movement and was busy taking from their ideas what I thought fit my own personal vision and voice because, by God, I had my own, even then. I felt hurt by the workshop leader's comments, but later realized that I couldn't help her prejudices and would take from her other comments whatever I thought would help improve my work.

At West Chester, I bought a book of criticism by Anthony Hecht as a gift for a professor who had written a recommendation letter for me, and who, I knew, loved Hecht's poetry. This was the same professor who had introduced me to such writers as Charles Bernstein, Jackson Mac Low, Susan Howe, and scores of others. Making small talk with a fellow participant, I mentioned my professor's eclectic tastes, indicating that the Hecht book was for them, and was met with a dismissive look. "Well," my colleague said, "maybe that professor will learn a thing or two." All I had to do was utter the name Bernstein to magically summon a demon of disdain.

A former roommate of mine was always wont to repeat the old saw, "There's no accounting for taste." I always love to add to that, "I don't know what you have against accountants." (Insert rim shot and cricket noises here).

Old Saw is right, of course. I don't fault anyone his or her own tastes. And I realize that a lot of the animosity dates to before I was even born, and that at some point it involves tenure-track jobs and there is more at stake than the decrees of taste. Fine. But I think that's all the more reason to reach a hand across the divisions and become, as Share puts it in his beautifully written post, "hybrid readers."

Me, I mostly read work that one might call "formalist," or "traditional." My favorite poets include Hecht and most of the recurring faculty at West Chester, and of course poets like Frost and Bishop. But there are reams of that kind of poetry that I wouldn't even clean my behind with. There are hundreds (thousands? millions? billions?) of sonnets out there that, in my opinion, don't hold a candle up to Robert Hayden's "Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow."

All of this to say: right on, Don. Right on.

Everything we hold dear is dying and we will have to answer for it

2010-07-07T13:14:00.012-04:00

After weeks of depressing articles regarding cuts to higher education in my home state of Louisiana, I read this piece in the Los Angeles Times. My response to this in a moment. First, about education in Louisiana.

My alma mater, Southeastern Louisiana University, announced last month that it plans to cut its French program. After that, we got the news that soon universities across the state would lose LOUIS, a consortium of university libraries that provides a number of online databases to its members, thereby expanding the scope of research capabilities in small libraries. When I studied at SLU, such databases were indispensable. If I had relied entirely on the collections of books and periodicals housed in the library itself, my research would have been inestimably poorer. I imagine that these resources are, in many cases, the one factor that keeps academic programs at Southeastern competitive. Cutting this program seems to me the equivalent of a leg amputee shooting himself in his one good foot.

Louisiana actually enjoys "one of the nation's most progressive student assistance programs." I did not have to take out a loan to attend college, and only when I took summer classes (every summer) did I pay any tuition. Since I lived off campus, my fees mostly went to parking passes and textbooks. This law came about from the same politicians who constantly bemoan the fact that many of Louisiana's brightest students flee the state as soon as they can get into a better funded and equipped university anywhere else in the country. I stayed in Louisiana to attend college because I had met some of the faculty through a program that allowed me to take college courses while a junior and senior in high school, and because I earned a TOPS scholarship. They're letting go of some of their best and brightest faculty, it seems, and I wonder how handicapped the library will be when the funding for LOUIS runs out. If I were a graduating senior today--and maybe this is a bit too reactionary on my part--I would be gone from Louisiana the day after my graduation ceremony (or I'd leave soon after the last class and let them mail me my diploma).

Getting back to the national issue of library cuts. That piece from the L.A. Times says it all. I miss having a well equipped and stocked library in walking distance, and I regret that I did not spend more time in the libraries of the Boston area while I lived there. My wife visited the public library here in Garanhuns, which amounted to a small room with poorly organized shelves. She says that that is pretty much the norm in this region. One wonders how conditions might change in this country if the distribution of information and education were just a little more equitable. New books in Brazil are prohibitively expensive to all but the middle class and elite. Even though this is a university town, there is only one used book store, and while one may find a few gems there, it's nothing compared to its equivalent in the States.

Public libraries are definitely appreciated in many counties throughout the United States. I can't help but think, however, that more could be done to encourage the public to make use of them. When I read the article about the closing of the French department at Southeastern, I was reminded of the time I had signed up for a semester of study in France. The trip was canceled, and I was refunded my money, because too few students enrolled in the program. At the time, I blamed it on the "freedom fries" hysteria. (This was at the beginning of the war in Iraq, when the Gauls had the gall to oppose American foreign policy.) But now I think it was probably because there were only a handful of French majors (I minored in the subject), and few of them had enough money for the trip.

So, when I read President Crain's statement that French is a "low-completer" program (and currently enrolls only 25 students), I thought, "Well, I can't argue with him there." French at Southeastern, as long as I've been familiar with it, is characterized by a paucity of students. My advanced classes barely met the minimum enrollment for a class. Now, I am not supporting the decision to cut French. Southeastern, like every Louisiana institution, wastes money on any number of ill-conceived notions annually. And beyond whatever the university itself has failed to do, there is the question of state funding. I just can't help but think that if more students were enrolled in that department, the question of cutting French would never have been uttered. In other words, we can all do our part to help save these vulnerable things that we love. It may often be a losing battle, but it's worth fighting.

All of this, of course, is happening in the wake of one of the greatest environmental disasters in U.S. history (is that right? I'm just guessing). Even when I don my rose-colored glasses, the future of Louisiana (and the rest of the country) is as brown and stinky as....

Workingman Blues

2010-06-20T23:19:00.001-04:00

The argument could be made that Americans work way too much. The term workaholic is more often complimentary than pejorative. Countless people I know sleep with their blackberries on their nightstands, or on the pillow beside them in place of partners, and are trained to wake at the sound of the little machine vibrating. That is, if they sleep at all, if they are not already awake shooting off e-mails, preparing for the day that is just a few hours away. The average vacation for those lucky enough to enjoy the luxury of vacation time is two weeks. Much of that time is often spent on calls to the office to check in on how affairs are going. All of this could be used to illustrate that Americans are too busy chasing the almighty dollar to take the time to enjoy life, or to rest and recuperate the energy burned in the chase. I think that in some cases this is definitely the case. When I was working in a publicly traded company, I knew that the lifestyle of many in that company was not for me at all. The ones who were not nearing burnout, though, seemed to thrive off the fast pace of the business. They enjoyed fighting with their numbers, which they dutifully tracked in countless interlocked spreadsheets that got bumped up to the corporate office seemingly every second.

That’s one extreme. The other extreme is a culture that takes frequent holidays, with many if not most workers getting the day off to celebrate. The majority of businesses in any given town will close for the entire day. It’s difficult to keep up with if you’re not used to the rhythm. Every other month I get a surprise holiday. When I am busy trying to keep my classes on or ahead of schedule, the word holiday turns into a curse. “Another F—ing holiday, great, behind again…”

Now that the World Cup is on, employers all over the city are being challenged to cope with a dwindled workforce any time Brazil plays a game. Most of them just close shop for the day and take part in the festivities—if you can’t beat them, join them. It’s not as if they will see a surge in customers or clientele on a game day anyway, unless they own a bar or restaurant. Ask someone to keep an appointment on a game day, and you risk a look of scorn that will turn your blood cold. I never encountered this in Boston—it was understood that if you shirked work to watch the Sox play, you could take the next day off, and the day after, and the day after….

So, that’s the culture here in my city. Like everything, it has its pros and cons. I do enjoy the extra time off now and then. One of my main reasons for moving here was more time to read, write, and study. On the other hand, it’s frustrating when I need something from a store, but find it closed due to a soccer match. I guess it doesn’t help that I have never cared for sports (admitting that to anyone around here raises a cry—yes, an actual cry—of disbelief). It’s all about perspective.

Nada

2010-06-17T20:36:00.002-04:00

It was interesting to discuss such concepts as nobody and nothing tonight, having read this poem and discussion earlier today.

I Mean You

2010-06-12T23:02:00.003-04:00

An error I often make when speaking Portuguese is using the singular você when addressing a group of people. Vocês is the correct form. And of course each person has its distinct conjugation--the plural often requiring a nasal vowel at the end. Of course, forgetting that there is a plural second person other than the decadently southern "y'all" (or "yaw," as it's often heard) is such an obvious mistake for a native English speaker to make as he mangles a Romance language that I kick myself every time.

One of the most common English mistakes I hear is the replacement of the verb "to be" with the verb "to stay." I'm sure this occurs because, in Portuguese, we can say either eu estava com raiva or eu fiquei com raiva, literally "I was with anger" or "I stayed with anger," or, I was angry; I stayed angry. One can of course stay angry in English, but first one must be angry. And even then the usage doesn't seem natural to me. "Tammy Sue got angry with Tyler for cheating on her with that tramp he met on the Springer show, and she stayed angry, too, I tell you what." To my ear, it sounds very colloquial. My point, though, is that ficar, to stay, expresses duration and, I think, added intensity, in these situations. Also, a common idiom is to say o banco fica nessa rua, "the bank stays on that street." This is silly in English; of course the bank stays on that street--what, will it get up and walk to another?

That's all I got. I'm pooped. I'll leave you with my good friend Monk. I haven't actually watched this video--something's iffy with my internet connection. But I trust that it shows what is advertised, a performance of "I Mean You."

Maria Rita

2010-06-10T00:57:00.002-04:00

I have been listening to this song obsessively:

More on Birthdays

2010-05-31T12:57:00.004-04:00

I find it funny that you say "congratulations" on someone's birthday here. It implies that living another year was quite an accomplishment, and after I've chuckled I am reminded that, in fact, it is. It feels good to have survived another year on this dangerous planet. The other day I tripped and fell on the sidewalk, in the direction of the street. I suffered only a sore leg and a scraped forearm, and I quickly realized that if I had fallen just a few inches more to the left, I could have been run over. I didn't even break my glasses--that would have been a very expensive accident.

My wife was hit by a bicycle last year. We called an ambulance to take her to the emergency room only as a precaution--I was worried that perhaps there had been some internal injury we couldn't detect. She turned out fine, and our minds were preoccupied with all of the worse things that could have happened in the same instant. It could have been a motorcycle, or car. She could have hit her head on the pavement and suffered a concussion.

I don't want to reveal just how morbid my imagination gets on a daily basis. I'm very much a Monty Python, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" kind of guy. And looking on the bright side often means considering the greater extent of the harm we didn't come to.

I have been thinking about some people I have met who have always made a point to take the day off for their birthdays, something I have never felt compelled to do as an adult. I have been unlucky enough to work the same shift as one such person, and every other breath I'd hear, "I can't believe I'm working on my birthday." Gets old quick.

Well, I can't believe I'm blogging on my birthday. Later, dear reader.

Parabéns Para Mim!

2010-05-31T12:54:00.003-04:00

In Portuguese, instead of hearing the equivalent of "happy birthday," one usually hears "Parabéns!" or, "Congratulations!" The "Happy Birthday Song" starts off with "Parabéns para você..." The title of this post, then, is "Congratulations to me!"

But enough about my "special" day. It is this day every year that we also celebrate the birth of Walt Whitman, a poet I discovered in high school and one I keep revisiting.

Also celebrating his birthday today is Clint Eastwood, another American treasure if you ask me.

The Hazards of Learning Haphazardly

2010-05-30T12:29:00.007-04:00

Last night I started screaming. My wife kept saying, half-laughing, "Calma! Calma!" But I only replied, "NO! NO! You of all people know how frustrating this is!"

The problem? For the past year and a half I have thought that the Portuguese word for eyeglasses is "o óculos." The first "o" is the masculine singular definite article meaning "the." So, I had thought that even though the word "óculos" appeared to be plural, it should be treated as singular. "Meu óculos" instead of "meus óculos." (You've probably gathered by now that in Portuguese articles and adjectives have to agree in number and gender with the nouns they modify.) I looked it up in my textbook, and sure enough it said "o óculos," just as I've been saying it lo these many months. But when I checked two different dictionaries, they listed the noun as plural. So, was there a typo in my textbook?

No. It's common to hear the noun treated as singular. But technically it is plural. And this is something that baffles Portuguese speakers who are savvy enough to question it. I just consulted an opinion online, and there is a theory that "óculos" has been lumped in with a bunch of nouns that end in "s" but are singular. (My own theory is that, sometime in the history of this word, the phrase "o par de óculos" (pair of glasses) was common, and over time the words "par de" were elided, so that when we say "o óculos, we really mean "o par de óculos"--as in English when we say "a pair of glasses.") Because of this little linguistic anomaly a gringo nearly suffered a stroke last night.

It didn't stop there. I was asking my wife about the phrase "não se preocupe," (don't worry) which I had thought should be rendered "não se preocupa" because it is an -ar verb. We argued back and forth about the correct ending before I realized that in order to form the imperative for an -ar verb, one must use "e." For example, "call me" (by telephone) is usually: "Ligue para mim," with the infinitive being "ligar," an -ar verb. Once we remembered how to form the imperative (and after I sighed relief--I knew I wasn't going crazy, only getting forgetful), we were still confused about the reflexive pronoun "se"--but I won't go into all that.

Turtles and Monkeys

2010-05-28T13:26:00.005-04:00

I woke up at 9:00 this morning intending to set the world on fire. Instead I wasted a lot of time browsing various entertainment blogs and by 11:30 had washed the dishes, satisfied for having at least done something useful to somebody. It's only 2:30, now, so I have the rest of the day ahead of me. Perhaps genius will strike. I have been dividing my free time among various little projects--studying Shakespeare's plays (right now I'm plodding through A Comedy of Errors and am not impressed, having just spent weeks immersed in the Henry IV plays), studying Latin (I'm on my way to completing Wheelock's by December), and of course practicing and studying Portuguese.

While I was picking up a sandwich for lunch, I had the idea to watch the copy of the original Ninja Turtles movie dubbed in Portuguese that we acquired the other day. That way, I'd be able to indulge in some infantile nostalgia while also improving my listening skills in Portuguese. And it was a blast. Some of the dialogue was over my head, but I was able to comprehend a surprising amount of it. We don't get television in the apartment--we detest Brazilian TV so much that we didn't even bother hooking up the antenna. The down side to that is that we only watch DVDs, and they are almost always in English. Television and movies are a great way to study a language, of course, and I have been depriving myself of this invaluable tool. No longer. I'm going to make it a daily habit to watch one movie in Portuguese a day.

Most of the people I see on a daily basis at the school where I teach are only interested in speaking English with me, and I don't blame them. So, I don't have many conversations in Portuguese, not as many as one would think since I am living in Brazil. My wife and I have always spoken English to each other, and it's difficult to break that habit. Someone recently told us that there have been studies on bilingual couples, and that they usually stick with one language when talking to each other, finding it very difficult to change. Our experience jibes with that. Still, this week I have forced myself to start conversations with my wife in Portuguese, and it's been very helpful. And funny.

I wish I had some specific little mix-ups to mention, but I haven't made any translatable mistakes lately.

There is an expression here, "Pagar um mico." To pay a monkey. When you make a mistake, you have to pay a monkey. When they taught me this expression, I said, "Já pagei muitos micos!" I have already paid many monkeys.

There are a lot of expressions involving my favorite animal here... the word for coveralls is macacão, meaning "big monkey." In English, "monkey suit" denotes a tuxedo, which in Portuguese is "smoking," likely borrowed from the English "smoking jacket." Back to monkeys, the word for "jack," i.e. the device one uses to lift a car to change a flat tire, is called "um macaco." A monkey. And, when one becomes an expert, one is then um macaco velho, an "old monkey."

I have hopes that I have only scratched the surface of monkey references in Brazilian Portuguese. I knew that I would love learning this language.

Laughter as a Foreign Language

2010-05-17T08:28:00.006-04:00

Even the vocalizations that seemingly need no translation from one language to the next feature different spellings and phonetic identities. In English, a dog goes "ruff ruff ruff" or "bow wow wow," but in French he goes, "oua oua oua!"

I've been taking note of the different ways laughter is spelled by my online Portuguese-speaking friends. One spelling is "rsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrs," which to my ear is more of a snicker than a chuckle. Incidentally, another popular spelling is "kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk." Em fim, finally, there's "asuhasuhasuhasu!" I have no idea how that's supposed to sound, but it features a few vowels which leads me to think it's a bit more booming than the other two.

A scene from The Simpsons comes to mind. I can't remember the exact episode (sorry, comic book guy), but it involves either Lisa or Bart interrupting a French class in Shelbyville. The teacher, of course, is a beret-wearing, prison-stripes Frenchman cliche. The children laugh in the usual adolescent American idiom: "heeheeheehee," but are stopped by the gruff teacher, "Non on on, en français!" And so the children recommence: "ron ron RON!"

In one of my first French classes, before the professor entered, I asked my fellow students if they had been practicing their French laughs. They looked puzzled. Then I broke into a loud "ron ron RON!" They laughed in English.

The Writing Life

2010-05-03T10:22:00.003-04:00

I am simultaneously drawn to and bored by articles, blog entries, musings on the writing process, rejection, writing rituals, and all the related minutiae. I suppose I am drawn to them to see how my own haphazard processes compare, and am often bored since we are talking about what amounts to sitting alone in a chair, in front of a computer screen, a typewriter, or with a pad and writing instrument. The excitement happens somewhere between brain and page, and I'm not sure there's a way to capture that excitement without dropping into the banal. Then again, counting the number of drafts a poem takes to "get there," or detailing how many times you've sent off a manuscript before acceptance, isn't all that fresh when you compare the hundreds or thousands of such chronicles that one finds online or in writing magazines like Poets and Writers. The finally product of all this busywork, one hopes, will turn out infinitely more interesting.

I am reminded of the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, a flick I flat-out hated. I had seen so much potential in the concept only to be disappointed by a more-or-less conventional rock and roll story, more of the same drugs and broken relationships. It was more or less the same movie that Walk the Line had been. I realized that everything I liked about Dylan and Cash was in the music, and the personae that came through the songs. I don't care to know much about their personal lives.

All of that to preface a few comments on the writing life.

I recently threw in my two cents in a discussion on Facebook concerning editors' requests for re-writes. I think that fiction writers get these a lot more often than poets, but I have had a couple in my day. They were minor requests to fix little bumps in the meter or to tone down an overly sentimental line here or there. In each case the poem was made stronger, and I was grateful for the careful editorial attention. Others in the discussion treated the issue as deplorable, as high and mighty editors believing they know more than the writer. I can see how this must be true in some cases. But I think it should be taken on a case-by-case basis. I'm not so great that I can't take a bit of advice or a suggestion from an editor devoted to putting out the best work, and patient enough to help me get my own work there.

Rapadura

2010-04-29T14:22:00.004-04:00

One of my students has turned me on to rapadura. As the Wikipedia article states, it's basically dried sugar cane juice sold in bricks. Very sweet, potent stuff. It's used as a sugar substitute, and here it is eaten by itself as a candy and energy boost. My wife says it was a favorite food of her father's when he farmed during her childhood--he would eat some rapadura after lunch in order to have some quick-burning energy to take back to the fields.

The taste is pleasant, very surprising given that the odor has a bitter tinge. In Louisiana there are a number of local brands of pure cane syrup from the southern cane fields. I have never liked this syrup. If memory serves, it has a smokey quality that overpowers the sweetness. I was expecting rapadura to possess the same punch, but its caramel flavor was well balanced. The texture is lovely--it melts as it crumbles in the mouth. And a little bit goes a long way--I only ate a couple of shavings just now, with some coffee, and it's got me near jitters.

Sugar production is something in common between this region of Brazil and southern Louisiana. João Cabral de Melo-Neto, a poet from Pernambuco, has a few poems devoted to the cane fields of the region. I can't help thinking of Louisiana poet Jack Bedell, my friend and former teacher, when I read the de Melo-Neto poems. He, too, has a number of poems relating to the fields, and the hard lives of those who work them.

Noodz

2010-04-26T22:39:00.006-04:00

In Portuguese there is an "I" in team: "time," pronounced something like "TEE-mee." I'm sure it found its way into the Luso-lexicon by way of futebol fans who luso-fied the pronunciation and spelled it according to Portuguese orthography.

Of course, "I" doesn't really mean anything in Portuguese (to my limited knowledge anyway) except perhaps as the Roman numeral for one.

The Portuguese "time" is an import from English. There are a lot of English words peppering the language. Buffets are popular here, but they are called "self-services." There is a fast food chain here called Milk Shake (I have eaten there on a number of occasions and have yet to try their name sake beverage).

In poetry news, be sure to check out the only FLEA that scratches your itch (for a particular brand of formal poetry).

Que mais? What else?

Today someone mumbled to me in Portuguese and I understood almost verbatim what he said. That's a new one. Deciphering mumbling is quite the test. One of my best American friends is quite the mumbler, though he will deny it up and down. I have a hard time understanding his English.

Some friends asked me the word for someone without clothes. I discussed the nuances between "naked" and "nude," and then asked for the Portuguese equivalents. They made an even trade with "nu/a" and "pelado/a."

Everyone in the room broke into uproarious laughter when the word "pelado" was uttered. I asked them why that word was so funny, but no one could tell me.

I recounted the conversation to my wife, and she hypothesized that the humor in "pelado" is that it is often taught to children, and is therefore cute by association. Also, when kids play impromptu soccer matches without proper equipment, referees, etc., just for fun, it's called "pelado," which calls to mind some vivid images if one considers the subject too literally.

Ninguém merece estudar as conjugações!

2010-04-22T13:13:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since I have updated this blog. Thankfully the culprit has been busyness and not my usual demon, laziness. I have been hitting the Portuguese books these days, striving in earnest to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of the language.

I'm breaking things down into easy-to-swallow portions, focusing on one element at a time. The first: verb conjugations. The most important part of any language. I spent a whole week only on an overview of verbs in the simple present and the many irregulars. Yesterday I did a blitz of all the other tenses, from preterite to conditional.

Until now I had never attempted a systematic study of verb tenses. The textbook I have been using since last year, Português básico para estrangeiros by Rejane de Oliveira Slade (given to me as a gift in 2007 by a good friend who knows me better than I know myself--at the time, I was dating the woman I would marry but had no idea I'd ever find myself in Brazil), anyway, this book is terrific in that it uses an immersion method--the entire book is written in Portuguese, and it introduces vocabulary and grammar as it goes along. But this is also its weakness--I have always benefited from a more analytical approach to learning foreign languages--I'm talking about old fashioned paradigms, laying it all out for memorization. This book features some charts, but they usually come after the usage is introduced integral to a text.

When we were last in the U.S., I picked up The Everything Learning Brazilian Portuguese Book. You've probably seen this "Everything" series...kind of like the Idiot's Guide or Dummies series. It presents the material in English, which is helpful because it helps me to stick my toe into the water before making a splash. I think I am benefiting from utilizing both approaches, though. I plan to return to the immersion book after finishing the Everything.

For the most part, I am learning English haphazardly and, until now, I haven't devoted very much time to my studies. Which makes it all the more surprising when I carry a conversation with someone, or when I understand the gist of an overheard conversation. My wife got a new cell phone, passing the old one down to me, so today I got a few of her calls, people who didn't have her updated information. And I was able to understand their requests and answer them fluently. Is there anything more encouraging than that? When I stop to think about it, though, I get a strange sensation--"How did I just do that?" As much as I hate The Matrix, I can't help but compare it to the famous scene when Keanu Reeves says "I know Kung Fu!" Sometimes it feels as if I am suddenly bilingual (well, suddenly almost bilingual).

My reading knowledge of French is as good as it ever was, which means that I struggle with it, and can read at a very basic level--and I earned that with three years of very hard work in French classes at the university level. So, immersion is the best way to learn a language, even when you spend most of your time in the house, speaking and reading your native tongue. But it's only taking me so far. Even though I haven't formally studied much over the past year, I don't think I would have gotten this far if I hadn't cracked a book. I think the exposure to native speakers has helped reinforce what I have studied, although I have learned quite a few constructions (like the past tense) from very patient friends correcting me over and over.

Well, I am happy to have taken the time to update this blog. I hope to write more, and soon.

The title of this post, by the way, means "No one deserves to study conjugations!" I am told it's a very common expression amongst native students of Portuguese. I developed quite a headache yesterday, keeping the future and conditional straight in my head. I'm still not sure I have it--so, I am off to crack the book yet again.

Black Coffee

2010-03-24T20:40:00.003-04:00

I have had the coffee conversation, in English and broken Portuguese, too many times to count. Here in the northeast (I am not sure if this extends everywhere in the country) it is almost unheard of to drink coffee without sugar. Most people take it black with copious amounts of sugar, and the rest add milk to the mixture. The sugar is added during the brewing process, in fact, which to me is a very rude thing to do--Americans can be particular about such things. If all you have to offer is sweetened coffee, you're potentially excluding not only gringos like me who don't like the taste of it, but also diabetics. The solution: when someone orders coffee black, they are served instant coffee. It's an outrage.

I, for instance, take my coffee black, and have done so for almost as long as I have been a coffee drinker. When I started drinking coffee at 18, I usually added half-and-half and two packets of sugar. One day I tried it without sugar, and found that the cream complimented the coffee a lot better on its own. After some time I eschewed cream and haven't looked back since. I even drink espresso black.

I can tolerate milk or cream in my cup, but I have become an enemy to sweetened coffee. To me, combining the sweetness of sugar with the smoky bitterness of coffee is too much of a flavor clash. That's the taste I've acquired. I also am not a snob about my beans--I'll drink whatever's sloshing in the pot, as long as it at least reminds me of what coffee should taste like.

When a friend visited from the States last year, he had enough of my exasperation in cafés: "No matter how many times you order it, people are going to look at you funny. You can't change that. Get used to it."

Life is Like a Side of Bacon, Miller Williams, and More

2010-03-06T17:38:00.003-05:00

I am sure that many of my readers are familiar with Charles Dickens' conceit of melodrama as a side of bacon. It begins chapter 17 of Oliver Twist:

It is the custom on the stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and all the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon. The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song.

After more illustrations from the stage, Dickens give us this summation:

Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight. The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference.

The last two weeks for me have been one lean side of bacon, dominated more by the red of wrath than the softness of fat. I really am taken by Dickens' metaphor, probably because I am the son of a butcher. It also calls to mind greasy x-bacon sandwiches (pronounced sheez-baycone) I enjoyed in Arcoverde, filled with slabs of bacon thick as pork chops which I know have taken off five years of my life (oh, but it was worth it). There you have it--the salty, fatty, triglyceride-ridden savor of junk food and the quiet accumulation of platelets in the aorta. The red and the white.

But let's put away my frustrations as they really have no bearing on what I'd like to address on this blog.

I was thinking of writing a short note about Miller Williams, James Whitehead, and other poets of that generation that are either from the same area (the Arkansas MFA program) or who share generational and aesthetic ties (the late George Garrett, whose poetry and short fiction I became more acquainted with on vacation in December, comes immediately to mind). Alas, my prime example as critic is neither Eliot, nor Adorno, but Popeye the sailor man. That is to say, "I yam what I yam, I likes what I likes." In other words, I'm not much of a critic, or at least don't consider myself as such and have not exercised the muscles involved. I intend to change that one day, but that day is not today. I don't want that to stop me, however, from pointing interested readers in the direction of writers who deserve attention.

I was thrilled to see Leon Stokesbury featured on Brian Brodeur's How a Poem Happens. Mr. Stokesbury has edited a wonderful anthology of southern poets entitled The Made Thing. It is not to be missed. It's a comprehensive overview and a strong introduction to Southern American poetry of the last half of the twentieth century. Oops, that's me trying to play cricket. More important than the qualifiers "comprehensive," "definitive," "good introduction" is "damn good read," and that's this book.

So, getting back to Miller Williams. He's certainly had a good career, one of his many honors being one among the chosen few to read at an inaugural address for a U.S. president (Clinton). Few may remember that Billy Collins was in effect discovered by Miller Williams, and they seem to share an affinity for intellectual wit and a strict avoidence of obscurity. Williams avoids the pitfalls that have probably made Collins the more famous (if I were so inclined, I'd count how many times Collins refers to "the heart" in his work--it's his sugary signature). Williams excels at dramatic monologue -- I would say that his poem "Ruby Tells All" stands up with the best in the form in English poetry.

Williams came to mind as I was reading David Mason's review of the late Michael Donaghy's collected prose and poems in the latest Dark Horse (and happily available online). Mason laments the lack of word regarding Donaghy in the States, and I share his regret. And, again as Mason points out, Donaghy was a master of the dramatic voice, resulting in some fine dramatic monologues. And I thought about Williams, little spoken of outside of the Fayetville crowd these days (although his last book was reviewed in the New York Times, so he's not exactly wallowing in neglect), and his entertaining, moving, and stimulating dramatic poems. Some of the most-read and read-again volumes in my poetry collection are Williams' Selected Poems and Donaghy's collections.

Speaking of Williams, again, it was nice to read a review of his latest book as part of the editorial for the newest Unsplendid. Editor Douglas Basford pulls no punches, and I think the result is a good assessment of the poet's strengths and weaknesses. He gives the red and the white of it, so to speak.

As you're enjoying the rest of that issue of Unsplendid, don't miss my little offering, "Sparkles from the Wheel," which steals its title and dominant image from a poem by Whitman.

João Gilberto

2010-02-15T21:48:00.001-05:00

Eu e É O

2010-02-15T16:00:00.003-05:00

The title of this post translates as "I and Is The." To this gringo's ear this personal pronoun and verbal phrase sound identical in Portuguese, which causes a number of problems in daily conversation. I will follow along with a speaker's train of thought for the first few words, but then all of a sudden I can swear that I hear them say "Eu," and my brain shifts to interpret what comes next as a new sentence beginning with "I." At this point I'm struggling to remember the words I just heard, make sense of what is being spoken, and framing a response based on what I can only guess is the statement or question that's been formed. Usually I just sigh and say, "Sorry, I don't speak much Portuguese," or "Please speak slowly." It's annoying when my request is answered with a puzzled look and an even faster gush of confusing vowels. I am used to speaking English slowly for non-native speakers, not just from teaching here but also through business dealings in Boston with people from all sorts of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

If, like me, you're new to Portuguese, be mindful of the homophones eu and é o. It'll help with comprehension if you realize this sound has two distinct meanings dependent on context.

I am intrigued that in Portuguese there is no attempt to avoid hiatus in the phrase é o, indeed in any occurrence of hiatus with the exception of constructions like na or no meaning em + a and em + o. Avoiding hiatus is, if memory serves, of paramount concern to French speakers. It seems to me that in English we tend to avoid it, but we're not overly fussy with it. To my ear, Brazilian Portuguese speakers flaunt it. It's a bit like a violin's trill.

I fear I'm a bit over my head without looking through references for all this linguistic mumbo jumbo. I hope that a kind, more knowledgeable reader out there will correct where I may have erred, or further illuminate me on the subject.

Adultery and its Discontents

2010-02-11T23:51:00.005-05:00

One day a friend approached me and asked for the English word for a man whose wife has cheated on him. I told my friend that there is a now obsolete word, "cuckold," but that, as far as I knew, contemporary English really doesn't have an equivalent. I said that we have a word for the person who cheats, and that is, of course, "cheater." But we do not have a name for the one cheated.

The word corno in Portuguese is equivalent to "cuckold," but it has not obsolesced in everyday speech. I recently read an article in a Brazilian magazine about the internet's contribution to sexual infidelity, and it was replete with illustrations of men and women growing horns much like those you see in 15th and 16th century British woodcuts depicting "cuckolds."

"Well," my friend said, "what would you call such a person whose spouse sleeps with someone else?"

"A poor bastard," I replied.

Please replace your seats and tray tables to their upright and locked position....

2010-02-11T12:56:00.004-05:00

If this blog were a fish-tank, all my betas and little sharks would be belly-up. My apologies for not sprinkling food-flakes of news and views. Here's a summary of what's happened since December.

We had to rush through our classes in order to leave the country on the 16th for a trip to visit family in Louisiana. By the middle of December we were both equally fed up with the frustrations of living where we do in Brazil (noise pollution and air pollution, insane traffic, cluttered sidewalks that necessitate walking into the street where aforementioned traffic is a threat to life, and bureaucratic nightmares Kafka couldn't have dreamed up.) Not that living in the States doesn't have its own frustrations. But every locale requires its own special brand of daily fortitude.

I wish that my trip to the States was more eventful. We became couch potatoes when we weren't driving up and down the interstate visiting friends. The vacation lasted from the middle of December until the end of January, and during one of those weeks we visited Boston.

Boston has become our very real, much remembered Shangri-la. Whenever we need to vent, we'll recall tales of museum outings, long afternoons spent in used bookstores, or the countless good meals to which we treated ourselves at our favorite restaurants. Garanhuns is the privation of all these things, but I am happier here, on a whole, than I was in Boston. This is because I am not working a 40 hour week in Brazil. I haven't tallied up the hours yet, but my schedule this semester is probably less than 20, and I'm working more hours now than before. We're still challenged to make ends meet, to make enough to save, and we're both aware this current situation is not viable in the long or even short term--we need to find more work, and quick--but having all of this time to pursue literary endeavors has been a major blessing, and has contributed more to my happiness than could all the museums, restaurants, libraries, concerts, and used bookstores in the world.

And, of course, Brazil is not without culture. Every time I leave the house I'm confronted with a culture that proves more unique and elusive no matter how familiar I become with it. At present, this is something I cannot quite put my finger on, but I hope in the near future to start dealing with the fine particulars of my new home, to explore the customs and people more thoroughly.

A note on language: my Portuguese is functional, barely. My listening comprehension is not so good--I still have the common beginner's complaint that everyone "talks too fast." I think it's a sign that I haven't done enough daily immersion. Since I spend much of my free time in the apartment, surrounded by books in English, internet sites in English, DVDs in English, and a wife who forgets to speak Portuguese to me even mid-sentence. I have not been a good student and forced myself to dive right in every day. But this week I've made a point to change that. I'm starting to mark the calendar every day I study, so that I can monitor not only my progress but my discipline.

Of course, another reason I have a hard time understanding the language is that I often encounter people who speak very bad Portuguese with very bad accents. My wife confirms this.

That's all for now. More later.

Make No Mistake

2009-12-10T11:45:00.002-05:00

Reading Obama's Nobel acceptance speech, I came across this sentence:

"For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world."

A stitch of rhetoric from the Bush years. Rumsfeld, as I recall, was fond of that little flourish: "make no mistake." Every other breath after 9/11 was "make no mistake." What they didn't utter so audibly was this addendum: "That's our job."

I don't know if anyone else has made the connection, but every time I hear this uttered by a politician, especially one with a thick cowboy accent, I can't help but think they ripped it from the 90's Western Tombstone, where Doc Holiday has this to say about Wyatt Earp's bloodthirsty romp across the plains wiping out his enemies: "Make no mistake: it's not revenge he's after. It's the reckoning."

The FLEA

2009-12-04T22:38:00.002-05:00

Broadsheet number 4 of Paul Stevens' the FLEA is out, chock-full of good poems, including one of my little ditties.

I really dig the FLEA. All of the best publications have an editorial vision you can put your finger on, but the FLEA has/is a persona you can shake hands with.

Age

2009-11-25T20:27:00.003-05:00

I'm not the first to take notice of this, I am sure, but tonight I was struck by how we refer to a person's age in English, particularly when we say, "How old are you?" This would seem funny, I suppose, to anyone for whom the word "old" is derogatory. I remember when I was four years old yearning to be five, dying even for the right to say "I'm five and a half."

In Portuguese we ask "How many years do you have?" I like that better. It suggests that one is accumulating sought-after collectibles.

Taste Accountants

2009-11-23T18:26:00.002-05:00

Here is a response I wrote to someone on Facebook who expressed disdain for fans of the Twilight series. As you can tell from my response, I understand fully where my friend is coming from, but I offer a bit of a different point of view. This touches on subjects I've written on or linked about before, so here you go, blog.

I used to feel that way about the Harry Potter phenomenon. I still don't have any interest in reading that stuff, and I won't go out of my way to catch one of the movies. Hell, I feel the same way about comic books and science fiction and fantasy. But I realized that I could have all the righteous indignation in the world regarding the tastes of others, and it wouldn't accomplish a thing. (I've also learned to appreciate more of the things I used to find distasteful)

I am saddened by the fact that many of my favorite literary journals probably won't survive the economic fallout of 2008. The future of the printed word is, if we are to believe all the articles and editorials, in jeopardy. I'm saddened when I think of all the cuts in arts education that have happened over the years (Hell, Venezuela has a better music education program than the U.S.--AND it's been shown to reduce violence). And insofar as high box office sales are a sign of the greater cultural wave that is killing the culture I love, yes, it's saddening. I wish I could replace all the Black Eyed Peas on every iPod in the world with Chopin's Preludes, but I would probably be executed without trial for doing so.

Looking down on people just because they enjoy some book or film series, no matter how trashy, doesn't do anything to change matters. And when you go around thumbing your nose at those people, what are they to do but assume that the things you like are only for snobs? I find that, instead of talking trash, it's better to just promote the things we like, and find good ways to articulate how we enjoy them. That way, we may win over a few converts. What you're doing is preaching to the choir.

The Dark Knight was trash, in my opinion, except for parts of Heath Ledger's performance and some elements of the cinematography. I thought Son of Rambow was a greater movie, and it was made with a much smaller budget, absolutely no celebrity actors, and it probably just broke even earnings-wise. As long as movies like that can find their audience, and as long as that audience doesn't die out, I'm not going to complain too much about what others find entertaining.

Player Piano

2009-11-12T14:38:00.002-05:00

Forgive me for linking to such an old post (August 2009, which in internet years is equal to the time between the end of the dinosaurs and the appearance of homo sapiens.)

David Yezzi introduces one of my favorite poems, by one of my favorite poets: "The Player Piano" by Randall Jarrell.

Reading this again, after a long interval, I can see Jarrell's influence on my work, my work poorer by comparison. But this poem! I love the phrase "Play I play." And that heart wounding line: "If only, somehow, I had learned to live!"

Kafka's Dictionary

2009-11-08T17:24:00.002-05:00

While trying to say that a certain dictionary of mine was cheap, I called it a cockroach.

Ordering Pizza in Brazil

2009-11-02T09:57:00.003-05:00

If Portuguese is your second language, be careful how you pronounce "pizza." It sounds the same as in English. Don't try, as I did, to pronounce it like the Italian "Pisa," with a long "z" in the middle. "Pisa" means "spanking." Where ever it may be appropriate to ask for a spanking, at the local pizza parlor it is not.

Nostalgia's the New Nicotine

2009-10-27T23:59:00.003-04:00

Digging through old jottings and ramblings, and came across this post I put on myspace a couple of years ago to inform my friends of a reading of mine in Louisiana. I think it's charming and more than a little funny. Is it? Or is it annoyingly bombastic? If you were to see a reading advertised in this way, would it pique your interest, or would you dismiss the reader as a juvenile charlatan? (That's what I am, but I don't want any potential audience members to think of me in that way, if it means they won't fill seats and/or buy whatever I'm selling).

Anyway, here it is:

I Can Read, and I'll Prove It!

Come one! Come all! Southeastern alumnus and D. Vicker's Creative Writing Award winner Kevin Cutrer promises to delight with selections of his newest work (and a few oldies-but-goodies).

Here's the man whose iambic pentameter has beguiled the editors of The Hudson Review, Connecticut Review, Texas Review, and more!

Listen to his tales of braving the Boston public transportation system, rubbing elbows with literary giants, and tracking down an affordable, delicious breakfast in a city full of lavishly over-priced diners!

One day only! Let's get out there, folks, and spread the word! Let every seat fill up! Let's break the fire code, people! He's using up all his vacation time! What a guy!

WHEN: 12:30PM NOVEMBER 8 2007
WHERE: THE WRITING CENTER, D.VICKERS HALL

A Moderate Burp on Trends

2009-10-27T23:30:00.004-04:00

...at least it's not a loud fart.

I've been meaning to comment on my comment on Chase Twitchell's poem (a post or two previous to this). My first reaction was "not another cancer poem," before of course falling madly in love with the poem. I hate that reaction (i.e., the first reaction). I think it's a product of the workshop culture, a culture I've managed to mostly avoid, compared to many of my friends and contemporaries (and my friendly contemporaries, as well as a few contemporaneous friends). Why a product of the workshop culture (whatever the hell that is--let's workshop the idea, shall we?). Well, there's always the rhyming double sestina about getting in a car accident on your way to the grave of your grandmother whose loss you're still trying to heal from while your stepmother is in labor in the back seat telling you that you should finally ask that girl out to whom you address so many of your science fiction odes casting her as Barbarella and whose eyes are brighter than the shards of glass that litter the highway as you die and meet the angels above. In other words, we encounter the same scenarios over and over again, whether we're the poor suckers taking the workshop, or the poor sucker(s) leading the workshop. I think that it creates an overload that forms a filter in the brain when one encounters these familiar subjects and tropes. Not another granny never said goodbye poem, we say. Another car accident story? Are all creative writers such terrible drivers?

I fight to take each poem I encounter on its own merits, without the sour taste of the many horrible poems I've read, the way you munch on ginger root to prepare you for the fatty tuna after just devouring some mackerel. Christ I miss sushi.

Write Love Poems Not War Poems

2009-10-27T23:18:00.003-04:00

Just dug up this little gem I wrote to myself some time ago while reading the Georgics, wondering why it wasn't much mentioned in my undergraduate days. I was reading David Ferry's translation at the time and thought I would have liked to encounter The Georgics at least as much as The Aeneid in my classes. Here's the blast from the past:

I'm opposed to war poems because they tend to be boring. Yeah, I get it, a lot of people died, women were raped, gold was taken, civilizations fell and civilizations rose. Blah, blah, blah. Tell me how to harvest apples, how to breed oxen, how to keep bees. Show me how life itself can be conquered day in, day out. Well, thank you, Virgil, thank you for that.

Pretty simplistic, yes, and I want to note now that I don't know what I'd do without the war poems of Wilfred Owen or, for that matter, Brian Turner (and many in between), but I think I hold to this preference most of the time. I don't like the poetry of daily life because it's cozy and warm, but because daily life is itself a war, one way or the other.

I'd also like to write a great big didactic poem like The Georgics one day. Too bad I know jack squat about nuttin.

What's Going On

2009-10-26T12:22:00.004-04:00

I'm going to post something here that I left as a comment on another blog, namely Steven D. Schroeder's blog.

Steven listed a number of "big picture" projects he has going on, and it inspired me to list what's rolling around in my noggin in regards to writing goals. I haven't considered this a poetry blog, but it should be no secret that's where most of my interests lie, and I love directing the few readers I have to poems online they may have missed. So why not share a little something personal about what's going on in my writing life? Here's what I wrote:

I'm working on my first collection of poems, all more or less set in, or about, the south, many of them persona poems told by middle aged housewives and the men who love them. And a lot of barroom monologues for good measure, as well as not a few poems involving head injuries that more often than not result in religious visions and conversions.

Oddly enough, the second manuscript is forming as well, with not a few poems already drafted for that one--all set in Brazil.

On top of that I'm drafting short stories and battling to complete a libretto for a composer friend.

A friend and I would like to start an online journal, but that's pretty far down the road.

And in my professional life, my wife and I have started an English school. So that's taking a lot of time and energy. But I find a busy work schedule only makes the writing life better.

So, if you feel like sharing, please let me know what you're working on.

Surprisingly Good Poem at Poetry Daily

2009-09-30T00:36:00.004-04:00

...by Chase Twitchell.

When I read the first line, ending on "tumor," all I could think was, "Crap, another cancer poem." I'm glad I kept reading, however. Even the most seemingly exhausted subjects are, in capable hands, inexhaustible. At least that's my feeling reading this one.

Possible Domestic Abuse Situation

2009-09-27T19:06:00.002-04:00

Not to make light of the very serious issue to which my title alludes, but I might just be beaten to a pulp by my wife tonight. I was ironing our clothes while she was off squaring things away for the new school we are opening, and like the inexperienced ironer that I am, I burned one of her favorite tops. There's a huge hole in this white angelic affair, now, with parchment colored edges. Just got off the phone with her, and there was an awful disappointment in her voice. I offered one of my favorite shirts to be burned, but she declined, saying it wouldn't bring back her nice blouse. She's being very graceful about this, but I haven't ruled out possible and deserved violence directed upon my person when she gets home.

All this after flooding our kitchen and living room yesterday. I arrived home from an all morning teaching gig to find her waiting for the water man. He shows up, puts the huge plastic water tank in our living room and takes the old empty vessel away. So far, so good. I then hoist the new water tank, carry it to the kitchen to set it down on the floor where we normally keep them when they're full (our "water cooler" is pretty cheap and we're not confident it can hold the weight of a full tank). So, I lightly drop the tank on the ceramic tiled floor and crack! and sploosh! there goes all that water into the hallway, rushing into the living room, and all throughout the kitchen. "Oh no Oh no Oh no!" So I spent a good twenty or thirty minutes mopping up spring water. (No carpet, so it could have been worse) Adding insult to injury, we had to pay for a new bottle on top of the charge for more water. Jesus.

Lesson: always pay attention to the thickness of a plastic water tank before just dropping it on the ground. I've handled these babies before, in nearly every office where I've worked. The Poland Springs and Abita! tanks are much sturdier than these local Brazilian brands.

The burned blouse? I should have looked at the label. And to punish myself further, I'm recounting my idiocy here so that 1st grade classmates googling me can rest assured I've come a long way from stuffing crayons up my nose.

The Death of the Book

2009-09-17T00:56:00.003-04:00

Reading this article made me sick.

Quote: “When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus.

Books are not outdated. That is what I hate about the info-age zeitgeist: everyone is in such a hurry to make grand pronouncements such as this without thinking them through. And they assume that because technology now is characterized by its fast decline into obsolescence that all old technologies will find similar fates.

People like this headmaster need to listen to what others have to say. From the same article: “Books are not a waste of space, and they won’t be until a digital book can tolerate as much sand, survive a coffee spill, and have unlimited power. When that happens, there will be next to no difference between that and a book." - Keith Michael Fiels, Executive Director of the American Library Association.

I remember visiting the Watertown Free Library when I lived in Massachusetts. It never became the hangout my old university library had been, chiefly because their stacks had dwindled to an embarrassingly small assortment to make way for banks of computers. I realize they are serving a legitimate need for the community to have computer and internet access, but what about the community's need for books? I'm not sure I could have survived the small town I was raised in without the local library. Why has it been so easy for many to forget the value of browsing and reading?

2009-09-16T01:58:00.000-04:00

P.S.

The president said "jackass." What the fuck does this have to do with anything?

Pop Culture

2009-09-16T01:50:00.002-04:00

I am always elated when I drop some pop culture reference from the States and my students don't get it. Today I mentioned Jerry Springer to blank stares. The other day I prattled a list of light night talk show hosts, from Johnny Carson to Conan O'Brien, and nary a student knew what I was talking about. They have their own talk shows, of course, but something about meeting people who haven't been stained by the same culture as I have is charming and refreshing. The first day I met my wife, in fact, I mentioned that I was from the hometown of Britney Spears, not to impress her as much as just get it out of the way. She said, "Who's that?" And that's how I knew it was love.

It turns out she knew who Britney was. But it took a few minutes to jog her memory.

All this in light of the Kanye thing that most of my friends on Facebook are mentioning. Before that, the most popular topic was the upcoming LSU Tigers football game. What will happen if I ever see the phrase "Geaux Tigers!" again? I don't kneaux. Something violent.

All of this has made it easier to turn off the computer, though.

PLUMBRICK FOR POET LAUREATE

2009-09-08T16:16:00.001-04:00

Patton Oswalt for Poet Laureate from Patton Oswalt

Good Morning

2009-08-07T09:21:00.002-04:00

I didn't mean to let this much time elapse between posts, but I guess things have been hectic. During the winter vacation, tons of time on my hands conspired with my new DSL connection to hold me captive for weeks. The result: I became nocturnal. I would go to bed after sunrise, and wake up at sundown. I didn't think this was too unhealthy until I managed to get into the sunlight one morning, and felt a sudden burst of energy. I had been lethargic for quite some time, addicted to the glow of my laptop screen even while feeling drained from all the exposure. This week we started class again, and my sleeping patterns have reversed--I'm going to bed before or around midnight, waking up around sunrise or a few hours later. Feels good to be a morning person. I hope to keep it that way.

Trips to the Academy, as I mentioned in my last post, and a church service, managed to pry me from the apartment's vise grip. The church service was done out of courtesy to the director of our school. Normally we would not attend, but she invited and out of friendship we assented. There is much about Christianity that I dig: the love your neighbor aspect, holding onto a faith in goodness in the face of evil and adversity, etc. So I try to focus on those things any time I find myself in a church, and forget the associations I have with fear mongering southern pulpit punchers of my childhood. It was easy, this time, because I really couldn't understand the sermon. It's easy to tune out Portuguese, which is a blessing and a curse.

I have been listening to Bach lately--Brandenberg concertos, The Art of Fugue, and at this very moment some keyboard concertos. This particular CD has been with me for years. I used to wake up to the opening track (Clavier Concerto #1, Allegro, played on piano by Murray Perahia) every morning. I'm not so much of a classical aficionado to be able to name most pieces, but a few pieces are always reverberating somewhere in a drawing room of my subconscious. Therefore I can name them immediately whenever they turn up unexpectedly (unexpectedly--I'm sure it's rarer to hear a piece of classical music in public than in my childhood, which wasn't all that long ago, while we're bombarded by rock, inane pop, hip hop, club music, etc. ) My first year in Boston, some friends and I saw the Mexican film Battle in Heaven that was screened as part of the Boston Underground Film Festival. It was terrible. But there was one scene in which the first movement of the first clavier concerto by Bach played in, at all places, a gas station. I nearly when crazy, having a Proust-cookie moment, flashing back to every morning I used to wake up to that piece of music. I couldn't help but tap my feet and kind of hum along.

The Academy

2009-08-02T02:18:00.005-04:00

Tonight we attended a meeting of the Academia de Letras de Garanhuns. We were the first to arrive, and had a delightful conversation with the director--I was surprised at myself for understanding what they were saying, mostly word-for-word... I even added my own comments in Portuguese, with a little help from my wife when I forgot a word. I thought back to April, when I only knew a handful of words, and having drunken conversations with some local hipster types about favorite bands (I was helped by them knowing a bit of English). My progress learning Portuguese is not astounding, but it is progress.

I get tired. I find that I can carry a conversation in my broken Portuguese for about half an hour, and then something snaps and I can't pay attention enough to follow what is being said. When the director was officially welcoming us to the club, after the minutes were read, I understood most of the words he spoke, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why he was putting them together and directing them to me. When it was explained to me, I felt silly.

It is encouraging, however, to be able to speak any Portuguese at all. It's a thrill to hear foreign words coming out of my mouth, or forming in my mind. Anyone who has studied foreign languages knows this feeling. No one was bilingual in my family, save an uncle who once spoke Spanish and German but lost them due to lack of practice. Learning a new language and, for that matter, living in another country, is something I can do while safely saying "I'm the first in my family to do this!" My immediate family, that is. I have cousins into world travel. My siblings and my parents all live within a mile of each other, and have for their entire lives. The family business is but a few hundred feet from my childhood home. Nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything too special about the youngest abandoning them for adventures abroad. It's just kinda neat.

Back to the Academy meeting. A number of members shared their work. I hadn't brought anything, but the director asked if I had one of my poems memorized. I do not intentionally memorize my work, although tonight I learned the value of doing so. I did have one little sonnet memorized, and recited it for them. My wife then explained the poem in Portuguese, and translated it line by line for them. They seemed to enjoy it, and the director said that even though he couldn't understand my language, he could hear and feel the music of the lines. I was flattered, to say the least. This is the poem I recited.

All in all, a wonderful evening.

Last night we attended a graduation party for a good friend of ours who just got a degree in Justice. Any time we spend with this particular friend is a good time, because he and his wife have a great sense of humor and share our love for food. The food was simple but good--crepes. The only downside was that the music was incredibly loud--not surprising, this being Brazil and all. The room, while not a closet, was not an amphitheater... it was so loud I couldn't think. On top of that, there were a number of strobes, lasers, and a smoke machine all going on overdrive. I don't like being thrown into an epileptic seizure while eating a cashew-chocolate crepe. The band, however, was very good. Not sure how to describe the music--big band jazz, I guess, although with a smaller band (trombone, sax, trumpet, keyboard, drummer, bassist, guitarist, percussionist, male and female vocalists), and with some Brazilian rhythmic infusions. Despite good food, good music, and good company, I was happy to leave.

We stopped by a little used bookstore and magazine stand yesterday. I bought a copy of a cordel book. I mentioned literatura de cordel in at least one previous post. The typical cordel book is the length of what we call chapbooks in the U.S. They tell stories, usually based on some historic figure, all in verse. They became immensely popular around the middle of the last century. This store has stacks of them. The one I bought yesterday (for the low low price of only R$2) is about Lampiao, a famous bandit who led a group of bandits and ne'er-do-wells in the northeast during the 20's and 30's. A friend of mine, the one who had invited me to the Academy meeting, told me that Lampiao is the Brazilian Hitler--but my wife and I found a better comparison in the figure of Jesse James, to which our friend assented. Many people in the States revere James despite of (or because of) his brutal ways. But I can understand my friend thinking of Hitler--I have a problem with making heroes out of murderers, no matter how justified the killings may seem to some. I feel this way especially since we have heroes who have used non-violence (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., The Freedom Riders, etc.) to affect the kinds of changes in society that one might assume require bloodshed.

Reading, Church Music, etc.

2009-07-28T05:47:00.008-04:00

For the first time since childhood I am creating a wish list. While we are making rent here, we do not have much (or any) disposable income. Our financial goal for the year is to make enough money to save a little bit each month after rent, groceries, and other expenses. So far, it's all going into the apartment and in our bellies, and we're skimming off our little nest egg.

All that to pre-amble my sudden desire for a Kindle. I would like to try one, first. I would also like to be assured that I can upload Project Gutenberg e-books. I know that some of the newer formats on the Gutenberg site are supposedly compatible with Kindle, and of course you can upload .pdf files to the device. I've read, too, that many books are only $0.99 ... the same books you find on Project Gutenberg. I am glad that my taste is as old-fashioned as it is.

This brings to mind one of my first roommates in Boston. She was an avid reader, herself, but couldn't help but ask me, upon seeing my copy of The Tempest lying around, "Why are you reading that?" The only answer: "Fun." She commended me for reading The Tempest just for fun. I can't think of any other reason to read that play. Sure, you might have to write a paper about it for a literature course, but once you start, so starts the fun. Not every Shakespeare play is as delightful, of course. But it is hands down one of the most delightful and inviting of his plays. Ariel! Caliban! Ladies and Gentlemen... Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yeah, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

Maybe fun is not the right word to describe the joy of reading this play. We have this silly phrase in English to describe our leisure reading , to set it apart from reading for school, for business, for the news, to check the cholesterol and sodium content of the Campbell's Soup: "reading for fun." You read Stephen King for fun. Michael Crichton. Dean Kootz. I don't. Mind you, I don't knock these authors, nor do I fault anyone for reading them. I enjoyed the hell out of Jurassic Park, The Sphere, Andromeda Strain, and Congo years ago. But these days, if I'm going to put in the effort of attention to read, when I have all of this electronic stimulation just a click away--I want to read something that will give greater rewards for my added effort and concentration. I want to rub my eyes after a passage and feel the buzz of my brain cells reforming after a genius turn of phrase. I want to feel--to be--changed.

Here's one thing John Berryman had to say about Shakespeare: "Sometimes a series of this poet's phrases will drag out our profoundest thought as if, truly, we overheard the soul of the world murmuring truths to herself." If ever asked again why I am reading The Tempest, Lear, or A Midsummer Night's Dream, I'll just say that I feel like overhearing the world murmur truths to herself.

I just had a happy session of reading that included no Shakespeare, but did include various selections from the King James Bible and Milton's Samson Agonistes. Milton's command of the line floors me. Though out of church since adolescence, I find reading the Bible a treat because the words reverberate and rattle awake some of my earliest memories. So does listening to old hymns, especially when done with only piano or guitar and a lone voice, or a small choir. The last time I was coerced into churchgoing, I was appalled to find a drum set and electric guitar and bass as part of the instrumentation. The pianist hardly played during the entire service--a few members were moved to sing along to a back-up tape that distorted during playback by the Peavy speakers. Of course sound quality wouldn't have mattered as much had the lyrics and music been worth a damn. Instead of the psychologically complex and literary hymns I was raised on, what I heard instead were banal, uninspired "inspirational" songs, or what I gather is called "Praise Music." Any of these songs can be boiled down to this: "God I love you/You're so awesome/I'm going to worship you all the time." Something like Kiss's "I wanna rock n' roll all night/And party ev-e-ry day..." Maybe this: "I'm gonna love God all the time/and praise Him ev-e-ry day."

Anyway, I don't mean to overly criticize something that is really none of my business--like I said, I'm not a churchgoer. How worshippers choose to worship together is their business. But I have had devout friends lament the loss of the old hymns with me.

Nothing about Brazil in this post. I am thinking of creating a separate blog to meditate on things literary and (more or less) spiritual, thereby leaving this blog entirely to Brazil. I'll keep you posted.

I have not forgotten my promise from yesterday--I am going to research the rain song tradition of the northeast and report my findings here. Stay tuned, Internet friends.

Rain!

2009-07-27T06:39:00.003-04:00

Cordel do Fogo Encantado, again, this time with their song "Chover" -- "Rain." There is a famous song in Pernambuco that begs for rain, and lists the miseries of drought, dwelling on starving animals unwilling to pull the cart or plow. I'm not sure if this Cordel song is a version of that, but I'm pretty sure it comes from the same folk tradition. I will try to find out more by asking around, searching online, etc. Will update this blog with any findings.

P.S. - Note the clouds in certain scenes with the band. In this area, and particularly Garanhuns with its high elevation, the ground approaches the sky, almost touching the enormous, ubiquitous cumuli. I have never lived in a place with such varied elevation--it compares with what I have seen of San Francisco in movies and photographs. One of the most beautiful aspects of this landscape is looking at the crest of a hill and the thrill of imagining that the planet drops off just past it because all you see beyond the crest are cloud and blue--no land.

Movies, books, etc.

2009-07-27T06:03:00.006-04:00

We have been watching a lot of movies since our break from teaching began a couple weeks ago. Last night, we saw Shop Girl -- the Steve Martin adaptation of the Steve Martin novella. It wasn't all that terrible, nor was it all that great. You, whoever you are, probably know this without me telling you. Depending on the phase of movie-going and movie-renting I am in, I either catch movies right as they come out, or I only see them years after the enthusiasm for them has dissipated. Saturday night we watched Tropic Thunder. We caught that one while it was in theaters. We saw it at the giant Loews theater in Boston Common. Ben Stiller isn't as funny as the people who work with him on any given movie (although he is funnier than Jim Carrey, star of the under-rated Stiller movie Cable Guy). Robert Downey, Jr. Nuff said.

I have translated a couple of short poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, my wife's favorite Brazilian poet. I had tried months ago to translate Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, a poet from Pernambuco, our state, but I find Drummond more attractive because more lyrical, with a fluid syntax. Cabral's lines are patterns of small stones painstakingly arranged. Drummond's style is closer to mine than Cabral's, although I'm sure the more I get into Cabral I will appreciate more because he is known for his narrative poetry. I am only just beginning. Anyway, the main purpose of translating is to strengthen my Portuguese. And to work the poetic muscles.

My sleeping pattern is out of whack. This happens whenever I don't have many responsibilities to attend, errands to run, classes to teach. My bedtime these days is 5:00 or 6:00 AM. I managed to go to sleep before or around midnight last night, but awoke at 2:30 for a bathroom run and failed to fall asleep. There was an obscenely huge pile of dishes in the kitchen, now all clean thanks to me. Also took the time to wash my socks. We share a washing machine with my wife's sister, which is a drag by itself because laundry means hiking back and forth since neither of us can legally drive (wife's working on getting a license; her dad gave her a car he isn't using anymore). We wash socks and underwear by hand because the washer isn't as effective on these articles.

I don't think even the richer people in Garanhuns own dryers, and most people here don't own washers. Usually if you have money, you hire someone to wash your clothes by hand, clean the house, and cook lunch. They're known as empregadas.

So I slept a few hours, got up at 2:30. It is now 7:30. I'm going to stay up as long as I can, see if I can start reversing this sleeping pattern. The new semester starts next week, so I damn well better.

Mais Sobre a Musica

2009-07-21T13:42:00.002-04:00

I noted in my last post that I wanted to write a bit about Marisa Monte and Cordel do Fogo Encantado, two of my favorite Brazilian musical acts. Through the magic of Youtube, I'll let them sing for themselves.

Marisa Monte was huge in the nineties and, I think, even made a little headway in the states. But I don't think she ever released an English album (if I'm wrong, and you know, please correct me). Good for her, but of course Americans are less tolerant of foreign languages that just about everyone else (I hear American and British music here almost nonstop, and not many here know what the lyrics mean).

This is one of my favorite Monte songs:

Cordel de Fogo Encantado began in the late nineties and is now one of the biggest indie acts in the country. (The link to Cordel will help you with a translation of that word, which really has no equivalent in English for the meaning used by the band.) I listened to an entire album a few weeks ago with my sister-in-law. The first comparison that came to mind was Neutral Milk Hotel, but only because I was getting a sense that the lyrics were legend-building the same way the Hotel's are. Well, see for yourself:

Here is a fan video of "The Kind of Carrot Flowers Part 1" by Neutral Milk Hotel. I think it's the guitar sound that sparked my comparison.

As musicas

2009-07-19T17:15:00.006-04:00

My students often say they enjoy listening to "musics" when they mean they enjoy listening to songs. Because in Brazilian Portuguese, you can use the word "musicas" to mean "songs." My wife (just married!) has made the same mistake since moving here--her English is deteriorating while my Portuguese slowly improves.

I have spent this afternoon listening to a Brazilian Portuguese podcast, actually practicing. My wife is out running errands. When she gets back, my first words will be "fala so portugues." Portuguese only, please. I have been shamefully lazy learning the language, a typical American. At least I haven't been yelling at the locals, "Speak English, God damn it!"

I realize that dropping the GD-bomb will offend some readers (assuming there are any for this blog). Truth is I am trying to curse less in English. In Portuguese I favor the mild curses I have learned, "Drogas!" which literally means "Drugs!" but is used, in movie subtitles, to mean "Shit!" It's less offensive than "Merda." I find it charming. Another common interjection of exasperation is "Ave Maria!" This is one of the first I learned; its meaning was immediately apparent when I heard it aloud (it's not in any of my textbooks, of course). I will never get over how French and Portuguese speakers have no problem with verbal sacrilege.

One of my favorite expressions is "Onde Judas perdeu as botas," translated: "Where Judas lost his boots." It is used to describe deserted places, dead small towns, what we call in English "the middle of nowhere."

On the one real note they have a picture of a hummingbird. In Brazilian Portuguese, the hummingbird is known as the beija flor: "flower kisser" (my translation). Unfortunately the single note is a rare note, as the real coin has taken over. Brazilian currency is a veritiable jungle, depicting sea turtles, monkeys (particularly the mico-leao dourado, or golden lion monkey), and lynxs. Most of the animals depicted are endangered species. I find the wildlife portraits charming, coming from the dull world of American currency and its official portraits. My wife misses the days when Brazilian money depicted famous writers, although sometimes they would depict a real hack. I miss the days when a writer or thinker could make it onto a postage stamp in the United States. I also miss the days when postage stamps cost pennies (well, a quarter and some pennies--I am a youngun).

The Brazilian coins follow no rhyme nor reason when it comes to size and design. Most fifty cent pieces are thick and silver colored, but are also the thickness of the common silver twenty-five cent pieces, and at first glance look identical. Also, twenty-five cent pieces come in copper and nickel. There are no pennies in Brazil, and yet the stores do not adjust their prices accordingly. Which means that if you are due change of 2.97, they will round it up to the next real (or round it down to 2.95).

One last thought on coins here: one of the five cent designs features a man who, at first glance, looks like Jesus. But if you read the inscribed name, you will find he is Tiradentes, which translates to "teeth puller." Dentist by profession, he was a revolutionary leader now commemorated by a national holiday, although a lot of Brazilians seem to think of his attempted coup as a joke. He was betrayed by one of his own followers, in exchange for tax exemption. Because of this circumstance, the betrayer is thought of as a Judas figure, and Tiradentes as Christ-like. Many paintings show him in white robes, with a long beard... anyone ignorant of the story would call him Jesus.

Well, that's all I have time for at the moment. I want to continue this post by discussing two musical acts I have grown fond of: Marisa Monte and Cordel do Fogo Encantado. The latter will be playing Garanhuns this weekend. I can't wait to see them.

Cities

2009-07-17T21:40:00.004-04:00

My first year in Boston (2006), I went to a friend's house in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. Her family lives in Walpole, a quaint little town with a mountainous horizon. Incidentally, I had lived in Walpole, Massachusetts, for a couple of months, where a couple of very good friends let me crash in their basement until I found a job and an apartment.

While in Walpole, New Hampshire, we passed through Keane, a college town that seemed oddly familiar to me. I was nearly overwhelmed with deja vu when we passed through the town square, and suddenly it hit me: I had indeed passed through this town before. Twice, in 2003 and 2004, on my way to Franconia for the Frost Place Poetry Festival (where I met the Massachusetts friend who graciously offered her basement when I expressed interest in moving to Boston after winning my bachelor's). Keane is a stop on the Concord Trailways line going to Franconia. I had spent almost a year among unfamiliar surroundings. It was an immense delight to find myself unexpectedly in a place I somewhat knew.

On one of our trips to Recife recently, the bridge over the river, taking the city bus, the tall buildings, the subway, all gave a vague sense of traversing Boston. Many talk about the differences from culture to culture, separations of language, custom, religion, and taste. But I find it more interesting to discover what we all have in common. Traveling through a large city, I get a sense not only of its peculiar character and energy, but also a trace of all the other cities I have visited and lived in before. Despite its violence, Recife seems to have a very good energy. All of the strangers we asked direction from were extremely friendly, and accurate in their advice. One walked with us for a couple of blocks, in the pouring rain (borrowing an umbrella), to make sure we headed in the right direction.

Writing about Recife has made me nostalgic for the lost New Orleans. Toward the end of 2004 and through the middle of 2005, I finally came around to exploring the decadent city I had avoided much of my life, convinced by my family that, if I entered those vile gates, I might never return. I only really got to know a few trendy restaurants and a decent movie theater on the edge of the French Quarter before Katrina hit. I am interested in going back there, for only the second time since that hurricane, to see what has survived and what has not.

Finally Back

2009-07-16T16:00:00.002-04:00

The Portuguese word for "flu" is spelled just like the English "gripe." Which is all I have felt like doing for much of the past three weeks following our move to what is now our third apartment in Garanhuns. This time we were fleeing a mold problem that seems to have followed us in a milder form. Right after moving, we went to Arcoverde to run some errands there, and to take in their local version of the Sao Joao (St. John) festival. The nearby city Caruaru is ideally the place to take in Sao Joao, but we were in Arcoverde and enjoyed a bit of the local flavor there. At first it looked like any town fair in the U.S., with various rides and concessions. But the food. The food was top notch. I missed out on much of the folk musicians, but got a small, unforgettable taste. Before we left, we passed some clowns on stilts. That's always fun.

Here's the Wiki link to Garanhuns, where we rent our apartment. I have loved all of our apartments here despite their weaknesses (lack of running water, mold, noisy neighbors). What I love about keeping an apartment here is the solitude. Living in Arcoverde, we shared that house with family. Alienated 21st century white boy is still getting used to the close-knit Brazilian family structure. Although my Portuguese has noticeably improved, I still can hardly communicate with my new family when they are all together at once. Although if you put a beer in my hands, and some music on the stereo, I manage to falo muito portugues. Err, actually, half-Portuguese and half-English.

So, we moved into our new apartment, and the next day drove to Arcoverde to spend the weekend. The morning after Sao Joao, I suffered a sore throat. All I did to alleviate it was drink some near boiling water, gargling it before swallowing. I figured that would kill the germs that were setting up shop. Turns out I'm a medical moron. I developed a nasty head cold with a few flu like symptoms, the worst of which was dizziness. I managed to keep teaching classes (although my students mercifully forgot to come to one class when I was at my worst, so I waited half an hour and painfully moseyed home). I got better, but stayed up all night working on a short story draft and ended up getting sicker than before. I'm a moron. During this second bout, I took a number of over the counter flu remedies, none of which worked very well. All in all, it was a week from hell that halted my creative work. I'm still trying to get back into a rhythm. Taking time off from writing is always good for me, refreshes the batteries, but the problem is it takes forever to build up the courage to face the blank page again.

After nearly dying of flu we went back to Arcoverde, this time to meet more family from Petrolina. Which further interrupted attempts to restart the writing schedule. We now have internet em casa, which is my biggest weakness and distraction. I have been online practically nonstop all day today.

I hope to make posts here more often going forward.

In publication news, the latest Naugatuck River Review is out with my poem in it. Please visit the link on this page and show a fledgling journal some support. I have a poem forthcoming in The Raintown Review as well.

West Chester Poetry Conference

2009-06-10T17:37:00.002-04:00

Live blogging from West Chester here: http://booksinq.blogspot.com/.

I wish I could have made it this year. Alas.

Naugatuck River Review

2009-05-25T15:06:00.004-04:00

I found out that one of my poems was selected for the upcoming issue of Naugatuck River Review, a brand new journal devoted to, of all things, narrative poetry. I know of no other magazine solely devoted to publishing narrative poems, although there are a lot of venues that are narrative friendly. One wishes for a reincarnation of The Reaper. I encourage anyone interested to check it out. The first issue features a wide range of voices and approaches. There's something for everyone there. The first issue was reviewed at New Pages.

My long silence here is due, as previously mentioned, to limited internet access. I check my e-mail regularly, but rarely have time to sit down and write a blog post. Things continue to go well for us here in Brazil, although getting my papers the way I want them is a challenge. We see the light at the end of the tunnel, though.

Anyway, speaking of never having time to blog, I have to end this post here. Please do check out that new magazine, and tell a friend.

Reading, Writing, Teaching

2009-04-17T12:28:00.002-04:00

If I am less prolific here lately, it is because of limited internet access. At the moment, I am at the mercy of internet cafes charging one real an hour. But locals staring at the gringo, that comes free of charge. Everywhere.

This has been a strange week. On the one hand, I have had to put up with guests in the apartment, in-laws. But the past few days have been quiet, the in-laws staying with another relative, and we have enjoyed an empty, cool apartment with a big office, tons of space to pace around in. That is how I get a lot of thinking done, by pacing around like a lunatic. Been that way since I can remember. Gets the blood going.

This morning was especially idyllic. Woke up, made some toast for breakfast. Girl already had the coffee going. Laughed and talked through the meal, then took my coffee to the office. Stayed there going over drafts until it was lunch, making minor corrections and revisions.

Spent most of yesterday emersed in various critical essays, and Ciardi's translation of The Inferno, which I am rereading for the first time since college. I also have his translations of The Purgatorio and The Paradiso, which were not taught in my undergraduate survey course. It will be interesting to take the rest of the journey with Dante.

I used to be intimidated by this most welcoming and genial of poems. The subject matter, of course, is not welcoming, as is forces even the modern reader, I think, to come to terms with the worst of his sins. But to paraphrase Ciardi's comments on the task of translating it, Dante's language is the common language at its perfection. Thanks to the generous notes, I am able to catch a few levels of the allegory, but the poem would be enjoyable--and the importance of enjoyment mustn't be scoffed at--even on its basic level of denotion. There is pleasure, too, in revisiting the poem after a span of years.

I mentioned Boethius in an earlier post. I caught a reference to Boethius that the editors of this Dante did not mention, and I gave myself a pompous pat on the shoulder. Figuratively, of course. I don't want dear reader to get an image of the author alone in his room, patting his own back. Too late, I guess.

I have been teaching for a few weeks now, maybe a month. I am loving it. Last night I was especially on a roll. It was a conversation class. The conversation classes I teach are a lot less structured than the other classes, which rely on a series of drills and listening exercises that must be painstakingly broken apart, explained, and repeated. Those classes are very fun in their own way, and allow for moments of fruitful discussion. The students with the most English, of course, they have multitudinous questions. Conversation class is a great time for them to ask those questions, and I have ample time to turn those questions into conversations, getting them to pull up more words and phrases from their learning. The challenge of the class is that there is a mix of skill levels--some of the students are in the early stages of the course, others more advanced. But even then, I sometimes get the advanced students to help out the beginners.

I also spend a lot of time talking, myself, and I am trying to do less of that because the goal is to get them comfortable speaking themselves. But I can't help but list tons of phrases, informal and formal, for their use. Kind of like Homeric epithets, those little cliches that have so much cultural cache and provide a fast rhythm to our verbal conversations. "Bring it back in one piece," for instance. A student asked if the word "wicked" always carries negative connotations, and I got to briefly talk about the idiosyncracies of Bostonian English. Last night, I think, struck a fine balance between class participation and teacher running his mouth. The students left with tons and tons of phrases scribbled in their notebooks, and I think everyone was happy.

I felt very high after the class, and a fellow teacher (who is taking the class herself) told my girl that I was really energized and "on" this time. I just had to give myself a big pat on the back.

Good Friday

2009-04-11T09:20:00.006-04:00

We left our new apartment in Garanhuns yesterday for Arcoverde, where we had lunch with an aunt and some cousins. She, the aunt, called me a gatao, meaning "big cat," meaning cute, handsome, a ladies' man. I have learned to get a laugh around here by saying "Eu sou gatao...I am a big cat."

The aunt lives on a farm... Fazenda de 2 irmaos, Two Brothers Farm. We admired the cocks and hens, sows and boars, Holsteins and a turkey. Some kind of garden spider... I think the English name is Crab spider, for what I saw... had built a web between stalks of red flowers, and was enjoying a meal of some kind of insect, looked like a katydid. Brought back memories. My father, when he was a boy, born in the Depression and poor all his childhood, used to catch those huge, black and orange crickets you see in Louisiana in the dog days of summer, used to catch one and toss it into the conspicuous web of a black and yellow garden spider. When I was a boy, he showed me this in our backyard. We would watch the spider, awakened by the tremors of his strong-as-steel silk cables, wrap the panicked prey like a wrapper at the slaughterhouse wrapping a mound of ground beef (my father was a butcher).

Speaking of meat, I am eating less of it. I have learned to avoid fried foods here. The other week I ate a pastel -- basically a deep-fried pastry filled with shredded chicken and bacon--and paid dearly for it. You want to know what Hell is like? Imagine being stuck on a toilet with the music scene from Return of the Jedi inexplicably stuck in your head, you know, the scene at Jabba's palace where the pot-bellied alien with stalks for legs and puzzling, glittery lipstick squalls over a horrible dance beat, and the disturbingly attractive alien with tentacles growing out of her head dances moments before her grisly demise. Imagine having that awful music in your head in a moment of intestinal distress.

Getting back to my newest diet... I think if I can remind myself to avoid the temptations of ice cream (at least at the volume of consumption I am used to) and the very delicious new pizza place (I love getting the frango com atum, chicken and tuna pizza... and coating it with ketchup and mayonnaise)... anyway, if I can avoid those monsters of saturated fat, I could really get in shape, because almost every day we walk over a mile, usually up some very steep inclines.

Looking over that pizza description disgusts me... mayo on Brazilian pizza is tasty, but it can't be good for my arteries. I can't believe how unhealthy I have become... my eating habits in Boston were atrocious. But I am correcting that here. We go to a very clean, health-oriented Self-Service (a buffet) often, where I eat mostly salad, some rice and tomatoes, just a little chicken for protein, etc. At some point I think I'll completely cut out the meat, to see what these self-righteous vegetarians are all yelling about. Not sure if I will ever give up dairy entirely.

Which brings me back to the farm. They asked if I wanted to watch the cows being milked. Normally I am interested in seeing real people perform real labor, only to remind myself that I have nothing to whine about, being a life-long pencil pusher. But I find the very idea of milk disgusting. It's glandular discharge. For years I have looked for an adequate way to describe my distaste for it (granted, it's not the flavor of milk but the thought of its source). I finally found the proper description. By putting it in latinate, clinical language. Glandular discharge. Think of that next time you have a glass of warm milk before bed.

Now, you're looking at a guy who relishes the opportunity to consume snails. (And I don't want to hear it from anyone back home who will gladly suck the head of a crayfish, or slurp down a raw oyster, how disgusting it is to eat snails. Or, for that matter, anyone who will eat shrimp. Shut up.) I also don't mind tripe, if it's cooked right. And I have gnawed on chicken feet with my Chinese friends, with some enjoyment. I have had pig ears without complaint. I remember jellyfish being kind of tasty, at least for its texture. If I ever find myself in a really good Japanese restaurant again, I'll probably order the Uni. Hell, I once woke up with a craving for blood. Blood sausage, that is, in the form of black pudding. Thankfully I was living in the Boston area, and headed over to the nearest pub pronto for a filling Irish breakfast. Much to the chagrin of my poor arteries.

But a tall glass of milk? Don't make me vomit.

But I love dairy. I also love pretty much anything made of tomatoes, but I hate unprocessed tomatoes themselves, unless they are diced into tiny cubes. Their seeds have the same consistency of snot.

As an old roommate of mine was wont to remind me, there's no accounting for taste. What she had against accountants, I'll never know.

Ouch. Now that's a joke that'll lose me some friends.

STARLIT IN STORES NOW

2009-04-07T07:56:00.002-04:00

Starlit is the new compact disc release by Louisiana-based composer Stephen Suber. Suber's career spans over thirty years and includes everything from electronic music/tape manipulations to symphonic works. This new disc collects some of his best orchestral and choral pieces. Not to be missed is the title track, "Starlit," which is a perfect blend of seriousness and playfulness centered around a violin exercise based on the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle little star." Another highlight is the choral piece "Soleil," as vigorous as it is haunting. The album truly has something for everyone. Seasoned classical music fans will find much to appreciate, but the less experienced listener will find that he has not been left out.

While available on iTunes, I urge any interested buyers to pick up the CD for the bonus of liner notes, written by yours truly. This is a great way to support contemporary music of the highest quality from an independent classical music label based in Louisiana. The sound quality on this recording is simply astounding.

Full disclosure: I am a former student and longtime friend of the composer, and we have collaborated in the past. I am also a native of Louisiana and can't promote the good things of that State often enough.

Water

2009-04-02T09:54:00.003-04:00

As things stand right now, we only have running water three days of the week in our current apartment. For the rest of the week, we have to fill buckets at a nearby spigot, and rely on the kindness of an uncle for real showers. We have talked to the landlord, and a solution is definitely forthcoming. It all has to do with the way the water is delivered. Each house has a tank that collects water when it is available, and the tank is meant as a backup when the water is no longer running. We have a small tank. The landlord is buying and having a bigger tank installed. We just have to be pushy to make sure it happens. The guys who do the work tend to be slow on the pick up. We're talking about running water, here.

A meddlesome neighbor had one of the workers turn off our water when she saw that we were travelling this weekend. Luckily, a relative visited the house and turned it back on. So, we had running water for as long as we have been back in Garanhuns, but it has slowed to a trickle by now. On top of that, we have contracted a stomach virus that is going around. It takes a whole bucket of water to satisfactorily flush a toilet.

So that's a taste of the ugly side of life here, but it isn't so bad. I was talking with my family this weekend, and they brought up Katrina. I think we went ten days without electricity then, although at night we would run a generator to cool the house down with AC, to bathe, etc. In fact, I had running water during Katrina due to my pump's connection to the generator powering my family's business. There was a lot of belly-aching during Katrina, but mostly not by me. I read a lot, helped out with various tasks when asked, and pretty much did all I could to ignore the heat. We were lucky, being as far inland as we were. And everyone knew it. It is wholly possible to count your blessings and belly-ache at the same time.

I think the tone of this post may be a bit colored by my recent reading. I have been reading the The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. It's a wonderful little book, in case you don't know it.

Pearls Before Swine

2009-03-30T15:09:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite syndicated cartoon strips (click on the image to view the entire strip):

I'm Not The Only One Killing the Language

2009-03-29T10:55:00.002-04:00

There is a store across the street from the deli where we eat most of our meals (good, cheap food, proof of God's love). The sign above the store says "Casa de Coco." Now, Coco has two meanings, depending on the position of stress: COco or coCO. COco means coconut. coCO means shit. The sign above the store literally says: House of Shit.

Someone told me she passed a supermarket whose sign translates to: Good Thief's Supermarket. I immediately thought of the wise thief who died on the cross beside Christ, who asked Christ to "remember me." I am very touched by the story, but I agree with my friend: not a good thing to name a store. But pious storefronts abound. Every town has some form of Lanchonette de Bom Jesus. "Well, you know there's an Evil Jesus Diner right around the corner," my love observed as we passed one the other day. And that's one reason she's my love.

Mania do Brasileiro

2009-03-29T08:06:00.006-04:00

So I tried a glass of Pitu, a local brand of cachaça. To me, it tasted weaker than vodka, but, drink being rare to me, I can't say for sure. I didn't order a vodka to compare, which might have proved enlightening, because we were at a bar, not a laboratory, thank you very much. The catch phrase for Pitu is Mania do Brasileiro, the Brazilian's madness, I suppose.

One of the little hipsters that accompanied us told me to be careful with the Pitu. The strength of cachaça seems to be a point of pride in Brazil. Although I stopped at one, it wasn't because I was in over my head. Don't kill yourself in one night, that's my motto. Draw it out a bit, take your time, enjoy yourself.

Mostly just drank beers. A popular way to order beer for a table of friends is to order a chopp (draft beer) in a huge cylindrical tap plopped own in the middle of the table. It's self-service. You press your glass to the white plastic spigot, and there's your golden ambrosia. I am not sure, but I think they call the apparatus itself a chopp. I drank cerveja -- beer, yes, but distinguished from chopp because served in a bottle. I told you this is a precise language.

I have no idea why I have spent all this time talking about drinks when the real pleasure last night came from the people. I alluded to a hipster, there were a few. One of my worst moments in recent history involved being stuck in a car with a bunch of hipsters in the back seat prattling on about how to classify various indie and post-punk musical stylings. The low point of the evening was hearing a bespectacled, skinny guy in a Western shirt with pearl buttons declare, "Uhh, I prefer older Modest Mouse" as if they were talking wine vintages, and with a tone of voice that seemed to say, "I prefer older Modest Mouse, which is all the evidence you need that I am a wise and well cultivated gentleman with superior taste." As much as I hate pomposity in general (especially when I notice it in my own behavior, I hasten to add), I particularly loathe the transformation of pop culture into some graded course in connoisseurship. It's only rock n' roll.

The Brazilian hipsters, if they should be so-called, were the opposite. We spoke a combination of broken English and broken Portuguese. Guess whose Portuguese was broken. Anyway, the conversation mostly consisted of listing various bands and singers we enjoyed. I believe that, during the whole night, I only mentioned two artists they didn’t know: Elliott Smith and the aforementioned Modest Mouse. The conversation ranged over oldies but goodies like David Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Beatles (I was reminded of how much I used to enjoy the Fab 4) to Belle and Sebastian, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, etc.

Also, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, and Sidney Bechet also earned high praise in the form of Ah! Yes! and Eu gosto, eu gosto!

It was a good night.

Estou loco, sim? Sim.

2009-03-28T18:55:00.005-04:00

We are back in Arcoverde this weekend; arrived to a full house. Two sisters and a niece are staying here before moving to Garanhuns. It's becoming a popular city in this family, for good reason.

My Portuguese is improving. Or, I should say, my willingness to speak. My shyness is receding. I realized that no matter what I will go through a period of sounding like the village idiot, and so I must accept this as the worm stage presaging diaphanous wings of fluency. Or some flowery shit like that.

Speaking of higher diction, I finally read Anthony Hecht in Conversation with Philip Hoy. Previously, I had only read snippets here and there. It is inspiring me to revisit his poems, which thankfully I brought back with me. In some ways I think it would serve as an apt introduction to anyone not already familiar with his work, if only to dispel the notion that it is entirely, or even mostly, autobiographical. I wonder just how many readers automatically assume that all poetry is about the poet. I try never to make that assumption. There is always "the speaker."

Well, enough of that. A fellow English teacher invited us over for lunch today before we left for Arcoverde. Cous-cous, rice, vinagrette, and rack of lamb in a fine gravy. Followed by the best chocolate mousse I have ever had (considering I only recall trying this once or twice before, that's not saying much--but it would be obscene to describe exactly how orgasmic this dessert was). We are scheming to get invited to more such dinners. We are thinking of an exchange of English lessons for delicious meals every Saturday.

On the ride to Arcoverde today, a man overheard us speaking English, turned around and said, "Beautiful, yes?" Meaning the hills through which we were winding. "Sim, Beautiful," I said. "Students?" he asked. "Professores," we answered.

He spoke mostly with my girl, in Portuguese, asking her how to phrase certain questions, then had a simple conversation with me in English, and I was all too happy to oblige. Students of English here are not at all shy. Most of them, that is. I have encountered some actual English teachers who will not say a word of English to me, so frightened are they of embarrassing themselves. Life is an embarrassment. So, get over it.

The highway landscape ... it floors me with its majesty. "Majestic" -- sounds so hackneyed, but at the moment a better adjective or description is impossible. I'm travel weary and about to get bleary eyed (God willing!) ... will hopefully finally sample some Pitu, a local brand of some distilled spirit which is supposed to put more hair on my chest. I'll report my findings at the next available opportunity.

God I Love that Rock n Roll

2009-03-27T10:43:00.003-04:00

This post will probably have nothing to do with rock and/or roll.

According to the NEA, poetry readership continues to decline.

I have begun teaching English. I have one class right now, but will start a conversation course next week. The director of the language school, my girl, and I were at the local radio station to promote the school. Plus, there is a sign over the school announcing a new professor with a degree in English, a native speaker. Within a month, not only have I secured a job but my employer was so happy to hire me she had a sign made announcing my employment to the world. And I have been on the radio. Talk about undue attention! But I am grateful. I am giving this job all of the energy and attention I have, and am loving it. The students are wonderful--I am very impressed with the immersion method used. Judging most students' knowledge of the language, it is very effective. The secret is to present as much information in English as possible, and only referring to the students' native language as a last ditch effort. In the advanced levels, which I teach, you are not to use the students' native language at all (no problem for me... even the one or two month students here have a better command of English than I have of Portuguese).

Which fact shames me. I keep telling myself that I am not the typical American unwilling to learn another language, but sometimes I definitely play that part. The problem is we dont speak Portuguese in the house. If we spend all day at home, that is a day in which I have probably not heard a single phrase in Portuguese.

But I am able to function a little. Just a few minutes ago, I asked for, received, and paid for a bottle of water at the Internet cafe where I am composing this post. No small feat. And don't you ever take such small things for granted.

In other news... well, I don't think there is any other news to report. The heat is sometimes overwhelming. We spent much of this morning scouring Garanhuns for adhesive envelopes. All of the envelopes we have found do not include a strip of adhesive. Common sense tells me this is because of the chronic humidity coupled with a dearth of air conditioning. I am preparing snail mail submissions to editors in the States, and I hope that a non-adhesive SASE won't terribly inconvenience them. Using that common sense mentioned above, it occurred to me that there is no way any student worker or other saintly worker stuffing envelopes for a literary rag would actually lick each SASE. Every office I have ever worked in has kept a supply of glue sticks for that purpose. It is safer and faster.

Unfortunately, these are the things that keep me up at night.

Miller Williams Poem

2009-03-23T21:06:00.003-04:00

Check it out. Highly recommend Living on the Surface, his selected poems, to anyone who hasn't read it. His new collection is mighty fine as well.

Lotado de Pessoas

2009-03-23T12:08:00.004-04:00

The title of this post means "full of people." As in, the theatre was full of people. But I can't say "O copo esta lotado de aqua." (the glass is full of water) I must say "O copo esta cheio de aqua," with cheio meaning "full." I think I am grasping the distinction when I say lotado = things, people, books, cars, toys... objects. Cheio = water, sand, joy, sadness, etc. Two words for full. While English is full of many synonyms, the word full basically encompasses both distinctions made by the two words in Portuguese. I am beginning to realize the truth in what my girl said about Portuguese, that it is a very precise language. I am reading this aloud to her, for her comments, and she just added: "Precise, sim. Just like German." I am reminded, too, that some of our greatest philosophers were German, and that Western Philosophy begins in Ancient Greece, in another exacting group of languages.

For crying out loud, Portuguese has two words for "to be." Ser, which denotes a noun's essential being or identity: I am Kevin, I am a man, I am a human being, I am a poet. Estar denotes things that can change: I am happy, I am sad, I am hungry (although the phrase for this would be estou com fome, I am with hunger). Now, French has two unique conjugations for verbs based on this same distinction. There is the passe compose which deals with things that did happen at a specific time, and the imparfait dealing with ongoing actions. The link above goes into detail about that. But French only has etre meaning "to be," although in certain phrases avoir and faire can also mean "to be."

What I am getting at is that, in the Portuguese language, the age-old dilemma of Being v. Becoming is embodied in the language itself. I know no German, but am aware of Heidegger's explorations of Dasein as a way to explore Sein. Admittedly, it's all mostly over my head.

Ser (getting back to Portuguese) seems to express the age-old proclamation that everything IS, the arrow never reaches the target, etc. Estar agrees with the equally old assertion that everything is in flux, becoming, you never step in the same river twice, etc. But not exactly. The existence of these two verbs reveals a willingness, I believe, to entertain both notions. In the world, there is both being and becoming.

Of course, I have no clue what I am talking about. My reading in this subject, as well as my knowledge of any language (including English, honestly) is miniscule. Please, dear Reader, share your insights... and please correct any errors I have made!

All of this just to get to a pointless vignette: yesterday we were going to take a bus from Garanhuns to Arcoverde. Instead, we took what is called a Lotado ... basically a large van that takes passengers on the same routes as the bus. Lotado, meaning "full." Yes, they stuff as many people into their van as they can. The driver claimed he would get us there quicker than the bus. I had my doubts, and my doubts were confirmed. The trip was about the same duration as a bus trip -- two hours -- due to many little stops along the way. Would you rather ride in a crowded van or a crowded bus? Bus, believe me. It wasn't my idea to take the damn Lotado. And we never will, again.

In Garanhuns we haggled with the driver. Or, I should say she haggled with the driver. I kept saying, in English of course, we should take the bus, but I did not explain why. Frankly, I trust a bus more than I trust some dude in a van. I was sure his business was as legitimate as any Brazilian venture (if you have a cooler and a supply of popsicles, you have a business here). But I had my doubts that his service held any advantages over the bus. I hate being right all the time.

The trip was not unenjoyable, mind you. We admired a brilliant sunset over the hills, and our view was probably better than it would have been in the bus. And I don't necessarily hate being crowded in with a bunch of people. I love people. Our fellow passengers were courteous (each one, as she was leaving, said "tchau" to people I presumed were strangers... although in this country, everyone seems to know everyone else, for better or for worse). I can honestly say I "rubbed elbows" with the natives.

Ah, the sunset. A various fire of rich roses, oranges, mauves, lilacs all scorched with looming clouds. Let me compare it with the Visualizer in iTunes only to say that those programers have a lot of catching up to do with the stratosphere.

It was a wonderful ending to a pretty blah weekend. Sunday was hell. I was startled awake by the barking of Tio Abrahao's dogs. Tio had left for Recife this weekend, leaving us to care for them. I fed them, but could not go back to sleep, and spent much of a cranky day addictively browsing the internet, catching up on what I had missed throughout the week. Seth Abramson's blog was a happy discovery. I enjoy his poetry very much, although his theoretical statements often have me scratching my head. But I should add that when anyone starts talking theory, I usually walk the other way. Especially when said theory involves reinventing or creating a new poetics. I guess I don't give much conscious thought to these matters. What surprised me about Abramson was that a poet of such fine accomplishment could leave me utterly cold when discussing the art. I wonder if I'm missing something. I think it ultimately has to do with style as much as the current critical lexicon. For instance, I could read essays on poetry by Anthony Hecht all day long.

Different strokes for different folks, that's what I'm always getting at. And, the more I think of it, I do agree with Abramson (if this is indeed what he was getting at): the metaphor ought to be taken down a peg.

I've just skimmed over this post--what a damn mess. And yet it's one big mess, not a bunch of little ones. Should be easier to sweep up.

Busy

2009-03-21T16:06:00.005-04:00

As one would gather from my last post, it has been a busy week. We're renting an apartment in downtown Garanhuns and expect to move in ASAP next week (we're getting the super to repaint the rooms and install a new shower head in the meantime... exciting moving-in stuff). It's cheap, quaint, and close to everything we need in town ... work, favorite restaurants, super markets, etc. Because our school is on the other side of town, we do a lot of walking around in this hilly city, and as a result are getting quite a work out every day. Good news for these two spoiled, American slobs. We've been training at the language school. I was supposed to teach my first class today, a class of one. She called in sick. So, we're rescheduling. But I spent about four hours at the school today, sitting in on classes, observing how the methodology works, etc. It's an immersion method, and apparently very effective. The students I spoke with today seemed to have quite a bit of comprehension, despite having only studied English for about a month. It's making me rethink my methods for learning Portuguese ("Eh, I'll move to Brazil and, you know, just wing it.")

There is a nice bookstore/cafe in the same neighborhood as the language school. They stock many classic Brazilian titles, as well as world literature in translation (of all books to have in stock, they had The Yage Letters by William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, most likely of local interest due to its South American setting... I am not sure, but I think that they procure the yage concoction in the Amazon. I picked up a copy of Pessoa's selected poems, and have translated (or transliterated) some stanzas with basic vocabulary. I think it's helping.

I made the mistake of leaving my iPod back in Arcoverde. I only brought one book (Ted Hughes's Essential Shakespeare) other than my Portuguese textbook. Brazilian TV isn't worth the time, at least not the original programming. So far, I've only noticed two different novelas: one set in India/Rio, and the other set in California/Rio. Other than that, it's BBB (Big Brother: Brazil). There are news broadcasts, of course, and kid's shows (some with racy material by the standards of American children's programming... but I guess a woman in a bikini does help one learn simple phrases like Bate as maos (clap hands)... I know I'll never forget it).

So I'm a little short on entertainment (not that I have had much time for lounging around the house reading ... we've been crawling through the streets of Garanhuns like rats in a maze, mostly buying stuff for the apartment, and meeting with our boss at the school). I've been writing a lot in my notebook, sketches for new works, observations, etc.

Interesting note about Portuguese. Aparently the noun saudade has no English equivalent. The closest is "longing," but that is really a gerund phrase. It reminds me of the French ennui which is often translated as "boredom" but has no true English equivalent.

In Case Anyone Is Reading This

2009-03-15T20:19:00.004-04:00

I will probably not post to this blog for an entire week due to limited internet access. The girl and I are going back to Garanhuns (see below). She's starting a job there, and I have training for an upcoming gig as well. Meanwhile I'm scrambling to make sure I have all my paperwork. Pity the poor immigrant.

Speaking of the blog, if you love or hate something you read here, please leave a comment. I'm having fun. Hope you are, too.

Periodical Madness

2009-03-15T13:53:00.005-04:00

An article from the New Republic about Socialism Re: Obama.

From the article: "But it isn't just the right that has worked itself into a frenzy; on the question of whether we are approaching a new age of socialism, there seems to be remarkable political consensus. In recent weeks, the covers of National Review ("OUR SOCIALIST FUTURE"), The Nation("REINVENTING CAPITALISM, REIMAGINING SOCIALISM"), and Newsweek ("WE ARE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW") have--respectively--lamented, heralded, and observed the coming rise of socialism."

This is something that annoys me about glossy magazines. Because of its relative success, a glossy has to work ever harder to secure the readers it already has, as well as cater to the impulse buyer at the newsstand who came for a pack of gum but only has a 20 the cashier won't break. Therefore, the covers of the glossies are the prophets of our day. IS GOOGLE MAKING US STOOPID? I can't remember which magazine printed this headline, but whenever I see this kind of simplistic hucksterism I turn the other cheek. Everywhere you turn, some slick and shiny cover is going to tell you HOW this new thing or development is going to affect YOU. I guarantee you'll never see this on the cover of such a magazine: "A reasonable look at the pros and cons of xyz social issue," much less this: "We really don't know what any of this means, and we're not going to waste your time with 5,000 words of self-important speculation."

There is a tendency in periodical nonfiction these days to make sense of overlying trends. The thinking goes, I suppose, that focusing on piles of statistics somehow gives one a handle on reality. I am not fully condemning the practice. It is important to take stock of mass developments in the social, political, and educational fields. But it seems to me that piles of statistical figures are used to draw arbitrary conclusions that, ultimately, cannot be honestly measured. It goes a long to way sell magazines that promise to guide you through whatever brave new world they claim we're entering. But does it offer anything more than opinion?

The article linked above is a prime example of how this strange realm of false zeitgeist mongering can be put to bed. A far better antidote: read small magazines and quarterlies. Just let a conspicuous lack of advertisement be your guide.

France's Highest Honor

2009-03-14T13:53:00.004-04:00

The Legion d'honneur is going to David Cronenberg. Director of The Fly. From the article: "He once explained his status in France by saying that the French, unlike North Americans, do not look down on genre films and appreciate films that do not fit the Hollywood format."

Fair enough. And I admit an opera version of The Fly sounds interesting. The few Cronenberg films I've seen have not whetted my appetite for more. His adaptation of Naked Lunch was just as feeble as the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. That is, it is cinematic porn for Burroughs-philes and little else. And don't get me started on the Dylan travesty. The script culled some great talent, not limited to Kate Blanchett and Charlotte Gainsbourg, but the film is nothing more than a mish-mash of insider references to Dylan fans, a cut-up of interviews and anecdotes sloppily pasted together in the interests of trendy surrealism. I went into the theatre expecting something different from the usual rock-star biopic, but was handed more of the same, only this time on acid. Almost two years later, and I'm still disgruntled over the whole mess.

Garanhuns

2009-03-14T12:09:00.005-04:00

We spent Wednesday and Thursday with a favorite uncle in Garanhuns, an hour or so away by bus. It wasn't a pleasure trip (we spent most of our time handing out our resumes, with promising results), although pleasures abounded at every turn. It is several degrees cooler there due to the surrounding small mountains (not sure if the proper designation is hill, or mountain... the few sources I've checked still leave me in doubt. I am from a very flat, pine-encompassed land). There are real restaurants in Garanhuns. Arcoverde, for all its small town charm, has a number of fried food stands, a pizza parlor or two, and one barbecue place that I know of. There's a fondue restaurant in Garanhuns. Yeah, I know! Fondue! There are also a few Chinese restaurants, some fine a la carte Brazilian restaurants, actual movie theaters, etc. There's something comforting about a place that resembles what I am used to in America. I don't mean to short-change Arcoverde, but even native Brazilians share my lack of enthusiasm for this little place. While I tolerate the heat well enough, the prospect of living in a city that more resembles California weather than Arizona would be appealing to anyone, I think. So we have designs on Garanhuns. The pronunciation, by the way, makes sense if you know a smattering of Portuguese (like me), but I can't imagine any American without such knowledge coming close. The "huns" at the end is pronounced "yuhhhz," utilizing a nasal vowel similar to the French "un" nasal. Actually, come to think of it, the "huns" sounds more like the vowel in "coins." (you can see my command of the phonetics is shaky at best) When describing the pronunciation to a friend recently, I said, "It sounds like they are mumbling something about "Gary's Loins." Scary Loins is another private nickname I have for the place.

Getting back to the landscape. On the road to Tio Abrahao's (Uncle Abraham's) house, there is a point in the road where the car heads uphill, and the landscape is more gorgeous than anything I can think of. There are a number of large hills covered with houses and businesses, all painted in the local light pastel color scheme (this must be due to the heat, lighter colors reflecting the sunlight... it also contributes to the blinding brightness of the towns). When you are in a dip in the road, and the land directly in front of you is a steep incline uphill, the oceanic rolling of the landscape is breathtaking. At the farthest point of the horizon, with clusters of buildings clinging to the hill, it looks as though the world drops off forever beyond that cresting of earth. And the palatial cumulus clouds that are ubiquitous to the region, fat and bright with dark bellies, rival the landscape in immensity. Indeed, when you are on top of one of these hills, you feel as if you could reach and touch the clouds. This view of the landscape, when you are in the car, only lasts for a few moments... the car or bus overtakes the incline, and the horizon evens out, putting the human dwellings at eye-level or lower. I don't recall ever seeing anything quite like it, not even in mountainous areas of New Hampshire or Massachusetts (I may not have paid attention, though). I snapped a few pictures, none of which did the view any justice. But we are leaving tomorrow to spend all of next week there, so there will be more opportunities.

Camille Paglia in Brazil (after the political commentary)

2009-03-13T11:49:00.002-04:00

Check it out. Can't really comment on Carnival--we showed up in Brazil a day or two after it was over. Living only 90 minutes from New Orleans for most of my life, never once did I go to a Mardi Gras parade. Screaming crowds are really not my thing, but it's great to read about the experience from an enthusiast's point of view. Enjoy.

Sandwiches

2009-03-10T20:23:00.005-04:00

What is it about a slice of meat between two pieces of french bread that makes even the most basic sandwich greater than the sum of its parts? Brazil is not overly friendly to the sandwich. My mother-in-law scoffed at my eating a piece of bread with my beans and rice the other day. Apparently, bread is strictly for breakfast in this house, mister. The fact that I drink black coffee qualifies me as a local legend. At least I've been immortalized. Getting back to sandwiches... sure, Brazil has the x-todo, which means x-everything... basically a hamburger with scrambled eggs, ham, niblet corn, potato straws, lettuce, cheese, and tomato. But other than that, the local culinary culture seems to ignore the many virtues of the sandwich, its sleek and compact design, its portability, etc. Today at lunch I rediscovered the sandwich. We had boneless fried chicken breast, and we had french bread, we had catsup. And for fifteen minutes of noshing, I was home.

T.R. Hummer at Line Break

2009-03-10T15:41:00.003-04:00

Check it out. Another favorite of mine. Thanks to C. Dale Young for posting a link. I keep forgetting to look in on Line Break, a handsomely designed site with stellar content to match.

B.H. Fairchild Featured Poet at Poetry Daily

2009-03-10T07:08:00.004-04:00

Check it out. For my money, he's one of the best we've got. And good to see Sewanee Review promoted as well.

Tarzan and Workshop Sex, or Miscommunication

2009-03-09T22:29:00.004-04:00

I was writing to a friend today when I suddenly recalled a poetry workshop I attended years ago. I know what you're thinking, "Oh, crap, a workshop story. Click." Brevity being the soul of wit, I'll be short and sweet. I brought a poem to the workshop that was little more than a cute vignette of a married couple painting a room in their house in preparation for the arrival of their first child. The core image was husband and wife starting at opposite ends of the wall, gradually coming together to make the final stroke side by side. Aw, shucks, how sweet. It was terrible. The workshop leader asked another participant to read the poem aloud and then to briefly synopsize what was going on in the poem. He read it in the ubiquitous droning chant of workshops and readings everywhere, and then proceeded to describe two lovers writhing on a floor covered in newspapers, their naked bodies splattered with paint, groaning with pleasure, etc., etc. I kept blinking my eyes, looking at the poem, then looking at the interpreter, then looking again at the poem I had written, and thought, "Damn, I'm even better than I thought!"

***

Before leaving Louisiana, I dusted off the family's VHS copy of Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan: Lord of the Apes. What a film. This movie is on a continuous loop in a basement office in the Arts building of my subconscious. I recall seeing it a few times in childhood, but those few memories are formidable. Learning Portuguese, I feel like Tarzan every day, when the sweaty little Belgian keeps repeating, "RAY-ZOR! MEE-ROAR! Razor! Mirror!" And then the climatic lesson scene, "This is your mother! This is your father! FAMILY, JOHN, FAMILY!" Like Tarzan, I sometimes get the urge to leap out of my little hut, into the trees of the jungle, beating my chest and howling at monkeys. Acquiring a new tongue is hard work.

Apples & Apples

2009-03-09T21:14:00.003-04:00

The apples here are out of sight, man. Ditto the grapes. I've tried a number of local fruits that are unheard of (at least by me) in the States. For example, the jaboticaba, pinha, and pitomba. Eating each of these fruits requires a large amount of work for a relatively small amount of meat. The pulp clings heartily to the seeds. Locals can strip a seed with pirana-speed. I usually spit my seeds after minutes of noshing, most of the sweet fruit still clinging to the black stone.

The apples and grapes, though, they beat anything Whole Foods ever sold me in Boston. I'm not an expert on apples, but I believe the ones we bought were somehow related to the Cripps Pink. They were considerably smaller and more compact than your average North American apple, and consequently pack a lot of flavor. Can't say much about the grapes other than they were green, contained seeds, and utterly delicious.

I would write more, but I'm afraid I've used up my wikipedia link allowance for the day. Sorry.

A Drive Through the Country

2009-03-08T19:21:00.004-04:00

This afternoon, we drove to nearby Pedra. It's named for a huge bald rock that predominates the horizon, on top of which is a small chapel where the devout make pilgrimages on their knees. There is a river of wax from the altar to the floor, from countless votives over the years. We didn't visit the chapel. We met more family; an uncle, aunt, and a little cousin. Plus their cows. The smell of hay and manure brought me back twenty years or so. Any time that smell wafts my way, I'm reminded of spending hours on a neighbor's field, playing with action figures as my brother and father fly remote control airplanes with the neighbor. On the drive home, I kept the window down and was tempted to let my head out into the wind, like a dog, to feel the rush of a country night at forty clicks.

I C@#T HEAR YOU

2009-03-08T09:56:00.007-04:00

I have family members who will walk out of a movie at the first dropping of the dreaded F-Bomb. Yesterday I happened upon a blog- review of a favorite book of mine, and one of the reviewer's only qualms was the "intermittent dependency upon the word kcuf." (Write that last word backwards to discover what he's talking about, but be sure teacher doesn't see--that'll spell detention!) I remember when I was four or five years old, I would run outside, furtively glance about to make sure I was alone, and then spew forth all the four-lettered filth the grownups were allowed to say in anger but would earn me a sore behind. Looking back, that was probably how I first learned of the awesome "power of words" you're always hearing about from poets and philosophers. Whispering those few magical incantations in the solitude of my back yard, I realized that their power was not inherent, but drawn from an audience (of authority, no less). And it seemed to me that corporeal punishment was an unreasonable reaction to the grunting of a syllable. But there was nothing I could do about that, at least not at my size and age. And so, I learned not only the powerlessness of words out of context (mere sounds), but also the power of that context, and the necessity of knowing my boundaries. To every thing there is a season.

I was raised by tee-totaling Baptists and, despite what some (or most) might immediately assume, I would not trade my upbringing, nor the parents, grand-parents, siblings, cousins, and uncles who managed it, for any other. And while I do love them, I do not share all of the opinions and beliefs of my family. In fact, having just spent a month with them, I imagine that the only things we really agree on are fried catfish, gumbo, and old country music (anything before the 1980's). I'm neither Baptist nor dry. Nor am I an alcoholic atheist. This comes as a major surprise to those indoctrinated in our Coke/Pepsi, Either/Or culture of opinion polls and bumper stickers.

In the church, I was taught to loathe the lukewarm. It was either fanatical faith or none at all, and this was mistakenly translated into everything in life. You're either for us, or against us. Looking back, it seems odd that a Southern culture that values the all-you-can-eat-buffet would scorn other, intangible forms of eclecticism. Well, I'm over-simplifying. But I think that last statement is pretty funny, so I'll keep it.

Getting back to our mother-f@#&kn' bidness. If I had unquestioningly followed the shepherd's hook of my southern fried upbringing, I would not have met the love of my life. I was not raised to consort with potty-mouthed binge-drinkers, but it was just such a low-life who introduced me to my love. Let's call him E. Taking cues from Jesus, who consorted with whores and tax-collectors, I befriended E. in Louisiana and later met up with him while we were both doing time in Boston. Much of our free time was spent imbibing the juice of the barley and sneering at the more attractive and successful people laughing and living it up at trendy bars in Harvard Square. Every other word out of his or my mouth began with fffffffff and ended with a belching uuuuccccckkkk. There are people in my life who would have fainted to hear the two of us go on in our usual manner. But in the context, we were just two dudes talking. Albeit incoherently. Brings to mind the Modest Mouse lyric: "Talked all night but what the hell did we say?"

And there are people in my life who would have shunned E. for his unholy tongue. But having sworn my share of oaths, I saw no problem in associating with him. Not that all of our pursuits involved alcohol and lowbrow talk. I met up with him one day to visit an art gallery, in fact, and he was accompanied by a classmate from Harvard Extension, a Brazilian immigrant who happened to speak real lady-like and turned her nose at all things booze. I personally was relieved to learn this. Finally, a girl who didn't have to drink to have a good time. Because of my lukewarm approach to drinking, I didn't immediately assume we were incompatible (I have friends who will not associate with non-drinkers, as a rule of thumb).

[sorry to interrupt the program ladies and gentlemen, but don't you find it odd that "Voodoo Chile" is followed by "Little Miss Strange" on Hendrix's Electric Lady Land? Possibly the most ass-kicking blues-rock songs ever followed by some flaccid Beatlesque pop-pap? Talk about variety, which I think is one of the themes of our little discussion. Back to the program...]

Three years and ... what, four thousand miles? ... later, and here we are. So one of the greatest blessings in my life came, however indirectly, from following a life of sin. Go fig, Adam & Eve. Go fig.

I was at a get-together once, and for some reason the "c-word" came up. No, not cookies. Believe me, I was wishing for some cookies. We're talking lady bits here. The discussion was actually about whether it's acceptable to use such a word in a poem. My opinion, which I did not voice at the time (remember: boundaries), is that it depends on a number of factors. And it's one thing to call someone by that name, and quite another to (perhaps erotically) refer to the organ with the language of the streets (or gutter, if you'll excuse a tasteless pun). One of the prominent voices in the discussion said something along the lines of this: "I have known some despicable, horrible people in my life, and the worst among them never used that kind of language!"

Boy, did my face turn red! Because this guy was essentially saying that, by virtue of my cussing ways, I was to some degree worse than the most despicable characters in his life. I hope to God he didn't know any Nazis. Indeed, I began to wonder: what shattering of an idyllic snow globe did this asshole fall out of? Most likely: the 1950's. I don't go around announcing my age, but it's probably obvious by now that hippies trust me (i.e., I ain't over 30).

Speaking of getting older, I find myself cursing less. Part of it might have to do with lower stress levels (corporate America is a real bitch). But a great deal of it has to do with the wisdom of the ages. You put too much pepper on your eggs and pretty soon the asshole next to you at the diner counter is saying, "Hey, you want some eggs with that pepper?" Mind your own flippin' business.

While I don't agree with the Baptists in my life, who believe that, at best, God cries a single tear when you utter a curse word and, at worst, it's just another sin you'll collect your wages on in the afterlife if you don't give up your no-good Godless ways, I do agree with the more reasonable objection that vulgar words are, well, vulgar. Using them assumes your audience is among the lowest common denominator, and a preponderance of F-Bombs and C-Words can become insulting to one's intelligence. The very language I have been defending happens to be the lingua franca of the Coke/Pepsi culture of my disdain. Sure, I like my rock n' roll, but that just keeps me on the ground (why do you think they call it a groove? sooner or later it's a rut). If I want to soar, I'll ride with Saint-Saens' Phaeton.

Conclusion? F#*@ if I know, dude. Pass me that Coors. Nascar on?

First Week

2009-03-07T14:36:00.002-05:00

We have been in Arcoverde for over a week now. Have made just a bit of progress learning the language. I'm told it will improve exponentially. Within three months I should be a functional Gringo--that is, able to understand what people are saying, and able to respond reasonably well. I get excited any time I am able to completely comprehend a phrase word-for-word. Most of the time, if I understand something, the comprehension comes from a combination of context, hearing a few familiar words, and interpreting tones of voice and gestures. Guess work, in other words. I'm learning not to trust my guess work.

The road to gaining working papers will be long but not especially arduous. I have talked with the director of a private language school here. She is interested in giving me a position as soon as one is available (despite my lack of Portuguese). She thinks I could drive business. This is the first time in my life anyone has told me, "You could be good for business." This is only the first place we've tried. We may not remain in Arcoverde for very long. Nearby Garanhuns holds more opportunities.

I'm living off beans, rice, cous-cous, fried chicken, and the occasional coxinha.

Louisiana Literature

2009-02-19T08:39:00.008-05:00

Three of my poems appear in the latest issue of Louisiana Literature (Fall/Winter 2008). To date, this is one of the best experiences I've had in publishing: I brought home my contributor's copies last night, and gave one to my dad. All of these poems were either directly or indirectly influenced by him, so I was interested to see if he'd respond any differently than his usual, "Oh, that's nice." The great treat was getting to hear him read, somewhat under his breath, the poem "The Future of the White-Tailed Deer." The speaker in this poem is modeled after him. The line breaks and stanza breaks all sounded good in his voice, and he corrected the poem's grammar where I had intentionally broken a rule, thinking it suited the voice; he read the word "carefully" where the text read "careful." Without knowing it, my dad workshopped one of my poems.

He was also mighty proud of my retelling of one of his stories, "Wild Heart." One day he was wading in the Tangipahoa River, which runs through a piece of our land, and caught a rabbit that had fallen into the river with his bare hands. I've been sweating through drafts of that poem for years. The best reward was hearing my dad say that my poem was "about how it happened." He thanked me.

Mom was asleep last night when I brought home the magazine. I saw her this morning before she left for work. She told me these were the best things I had ever written. I doubt I'll ever get as good, or rewarding, a review.

I was thrilled to see I'm sharing pages with many fine writers in this issue, among them Diana Der-Hovanessian. She co-translated, with Marzbed Margossian, Sacred Wrath: the selected poems of Vahan Tekeyan, an Armenian poet, "one of the few major writers to survive the holocaust of the Armenians in Turkey." I found my copy in the old McIntyre and Moore bookstore in Somerville, MA (in Davis Square. The store has since moved to Porter Square, Cambridge). Sacred Wrath was published by Ashod Press in 1982. A quick Amazon search yielded three copies, each for $99+. I bought mine for $9.00... regardless, if you happen to run across this title at a reasonable price, grab it up. Tekeyan remains one of my favorite personal discoveries, mostly for the title poem, "Sacred Wrath." Here are some lines from the translation:

Indignant, just, ancient saints rebelled
crying: Enough of kissing the executioner's hand.
It is our turn to execute.

Another of my poems, "Good Grief," appears in the March 2009 issue of First Things. I share those pages with fellow poets Rachel Hadas, A.E. Stallings, Paul Lake, and A.M. Juster. Also noteworthy in this issue, Joseph Bottum reviews the Burton Raffel translation of The Canterbury Tales. I'm not so sure the Tales need to be "translated," but apparently it's a money maker if anything in publishing ever is, because you see about as many new translations of Chaucer as Dante these days. I've read mixed reviews of Raffel's other translations. The only one I can vouch for is his Don Quijote, the translation I used in college. I can't compare it to the original, nor have I investigated other English translations, but I can highly recommend Raffel's. When I finally return to La Mancha, I plan to do so through another translation or, even better, the original Spanish. First I have to learn Portuguese. A week from today, I will be in Brazil.

Stay tuned, kids. The real fun's about to start.

Haircut

2009-02-11T18:23:00.005-05:00

The barber knew me as the spitting image of my father but not by name. He estimated it had been five years since he'd seen me last, but I counted at least ten since he'd cut my hair. When I was in my teens a friend of mine took over as chief groomer. And so I missed out on a biweekly ritual of sitting in an honest-to-God barber's chair for a sure-enough real, all-American shearing. In Boston I'd walk across the street from my office to a salon where I twiddled my thumbs, strained through ten minutes of small talk for an uneven $20 haircut. Sitting in his chair today, talking hunting and fishing, I regretted giving up what is surely one of the best professional relationships a man can have. You have your doctor, your dentist, your preacher, your lawyer (if you're especially miserable), and your barber. Some might throw in butcher, various merchants (tailor comes to mind). But of these the barber is best of friends, by my estimation, especially if your hobbies and politics agree. Because this is where you go to learn what's wrong with the world and what will set it right, if only Washington would take a listen. It's also where you learn the local lore hidden deep in the pine woods and at the river's lowest bed. I envy anyone whose job consists of conversation. The barber's got it better than Letterman. He gets to talk his fool head off all day minus the make up and hot lights of the cold studio, and without kissing up (too much, anyway) to soulless celebrities.

I'm losing track of the days, and told the barber as much. It's not that time moves slower throughout the day here, it's just that when you look back over the past two weeks, it feels as if months have oozed by. This may be a symptom of unemployment, but I remember keeping a regimented schedule here in Louisiana and the time still dragged on. For me, it could slow even further. It's a nightmare feeling when you blink and a week is gone. And that's the way it felt in the city. Like we were hurtling into oblivion without a hope to stop.

I am due for a rude awakening when I land in Brazil -- I haven't studied Portuguese with any regularity. So this will be an experiment in immersion learning, although my background in French and linguistics will, I know, prove helpful. The job search is going on as we speak, and I'm confident I'll find something worthwhile pretty quickly. I might get another haircut before I leave. To look my best for the interviews.

Crap

2009-01-24T07:29:00.005-05:00

I was thinking of Invisible Man by Ralph Elison this morning as I was waking up, about the time I was reading it, sitting outside a Starbucks when a stranger asked if he could sit at the table with me. I obliged. He asked me if my book was about the television show, or the movie. I politely smiled and described the plot of the novel. He wasn't too interested in that, but began relating pieces of his life. He was once a carpenter and had lived in a Christian commune some twenty or thirty years ago. He had a belly on him, had a grey beard, wore a sailor's cap. It was crisp Autumn weather--chilly, but comfortable enough to wile away the time outside. I could tell this guy was a recovering alcoholic by his demeanor, his desperate humility, and not too far into the conversation he hinted directly that he still battled to avoid the bottle. I liked him. I like all suffering, desperate fools for I am one.

Toward the end of our conversation, I felt a little splatter on my shoulder. My new friend laughed and said, "You've just been crapped on!" I examined the white streak on my shoulder, then looked up at the sparrow's butt hanging off the eaves overhead. Seeing my disgust, the alcoholic said, "That's good luck, you know. To be crapped on."

"Oh, really?" I asked.

"Yeah, I get crapped on all the time."

Well, I could see it was working wonders for him. I gathered he hadn't held down a real job in years, was shuffled from friend's house to relative's house, was barely holding on.

Weeks later, I was standing outside work while a coworker smoked a cigarette and we talked about women and cars. It was quitting time. I felt a huge plop on my hatless head. I looked up. Perched on a metal rafter, I met a pigeon's butt eye-to-eye. We're talking a huge bird turd, not a tiny splat. I said to my coworker, "I've been shit on!" I cupped the area of my hair to keep the rotten mass from shifting as I ran into the office bathroom. Can't tell you how many times I rinsed my hair with hand soap. After the shock subsided, I laughed maniacally. Suddenly I had all the good luck in the world.

Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, waxes briefly on the theological dimension of poo. This is from the translation by Michael Henry Heim:

Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the Creator of man.

Freedom

2009-01-23T18:23:00.005-05:00

We watched a documentary on homelessness a few months back, and one homeless interviewee said that at least he had freedom, something a 9-5 rat in a cage severely lacks. Today marks my second day out of the cage. I don't intend to enjoy this freedom forever, nor trade shingles for corrugated cardboard. No one ever does. But the past couple days have been 100% stress free, an alien feeling for me. I feel ten years lighter. At the moment, I don't think I've made a mistake. We'll see what I'm saying in a few months, struggling to adjust to the linguistic, social, and atmospheric weathers of my new home. Earlier today I descended upon Arcoverde from space with Google Earth, after examining all my Boston haunts and hovering over my Louisiana home. Anytime I see the horizon, whether in the city or out in the pine woods of home, I tend to think, "this is it." To anyone standing at any spot, "this" is entirely "it."

Chaplin

2009-01-21T22:47:00.001-05:00

Elmore James

2009-01-19T07:44:00.001-05:00

Everybody's Got to Move Somewhere

2009-01-18T08:23:00.002-05:00

Wednesday is my quitting day. With unemployment numbers rising, I'm the idiot who up and quit his job. Moving to Arcoverde, Brazil with my girl friend (she's Brazilian). If I find work teaching, then we'll enjoy an extended stay. If not, we'll come back to the states after a few months and start over here. For the past three years I've done hardly anything but follow the 9-5 routine, save a little money here and there, get fat and spin my wheels. In my free time I've pursued creative endeavors, but most of my time has gone to "the man" and since I have the opportunity to do so, I'm going to turn on, tune in, and drop out. Well, at least drop out. I'm taking my savings and buying a little free time. I guess you could say I've given myself a grant.

Some out there may be interested in hearing about a gringo's adventures in Brazil. Hence, this blog. This is the second big move in my life. I was born and raised in rural Louisiana, went to a nearby university, earned a degree in English, then flew to the Boston area where I've resided the past three years. Everyone in my immediate family lives on the same road, and it's been that way for generations. I feel very rooted to my home and the place I come from, but I carry it with me rather than allow it to hold me. My brother, a pilot, was in Boston the other day. I visited him at his hotel despite almost an hour of navigating the T in icy weather because I knew it was probably the only time two of my family would meet in a place like Boston. He asked me if I would ever come back home, build or buy a house, settle down. I have no idea.

When I am not documenting Arcoverde adventures, I'll probably recount Boston and Louisiana tales to indulge my homesickness.

The title of this post, "Everybody's got to move somewhere" is from the Bob Dylan song "Mississippi," from Love and Theft and also on the latest in the Bootlegs Series. Sheryl Crow covered it and didn't screw it up too badly.