California drifitn', back next week

adrift in Northern California
enjoying a private Edenic retreat
listening to Bob Marley's One Love
on S's play list
contemplating generations
and anticipating the soft sweetness
of the freshly picked blackberries
I plan to add to my next pot
of Twinings green tea

a rather disjointed post

My favorite NPR (National Public Radio) program is This American Life. Sunday night I was listening to it -- I know, I should have been on the blog reading all of your fantastic posts, but it was This American Life -- which is a collection of stories and this week's topic was fear of sleep.


The first story was about sleep walking and doing things when you did that could kill you. It happened to Mike Birbiglia, a comedian who told the story at a club called The Moth. You can access the club Web site here.

It would be worth your time to spend some of it on both of the sites linked above. But that's not what this post is about. Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, does very insightful commentary about the stories and the story tellers. When Birbiglia's story ended he gave background on the comedian and the club and concluded with the statement "Catch him before he becomes too famous." So I'm sharing him with you. But that's still not the point.

I've met a lot of people in the Blogosphere. And I've made a lot of friends. And I watch them become more and more famous. And they still say "hey" to me. That's good. The Blogosphere is a place to catch people before they become too famous. That's the point. I'm glad I'm here. because I'm glad you're here.

I'm standing up for my writing

Literally.

I have some kind of sciatic nerve problem, or at least that's what the physician's assistant thought it was yesterday. It's aggravated by sitting at my desk, partly because I don't have good chair poster when I'm leaning over the keyboard working. After about an hour or so, my leg begins to hurt enough to make me very uncomfortable, and after about another hour, I can't bear to sit there any longer. The only thing that helps is to stand up and walk around. So I started last week standing at the kitchen counter to work when it got bad.

Last weekend I had to work both Saturday and Sunday, and I thought why even bother to sit down? So I used some wire shelving we have to hold my laptop and stood the whole day each day while I worked. I also found that in addition to my leg not hurting, standing let me think a little more clearly about what I was writing. Whenever I got stuck, I just walked around in a little circle and by the time I got back to the keyboard, the words I needed were there. So I kept standing all week long.

Yesterday when I saw the PA and she was giving me some exercises to do, she suggested that I should try to stand to work. (I told her that usually I could hardly stand to work, but I don't think she got it. So I just said OK.)

A few months ago I was working on an article about physical activity and I came across a research study that focused on the benefits of standing as opposed to sitting. It turns out that people who do their job mainly sitting (like bus drivers, for instance) have a tendency to die sooner than people who stand more. We all know about the value of exercise, but this was true even with low level physical activity. So maybe pain is not such a bad thing after all.


Here's the first draft of a poem I did today after coming across some notes I'd made for an essay. Too early to tell whether I like it or not, but I thought I'd share it.

The running of the ideas (first draft)

When the gates were opened for the running
of ideas, three men were trampled at the start.
Two more scrambled over the walls that lined
the street. And only the bravest stayed in front,
shouting the whole way, cheered on by rabble
leaning from the balconies above
and smiling critics -- middle-aged women and men
holding dry martinis, drinking rum.

At the ring the crowd roared as the first idea--
proud, brave, and very strong--gored the rider's
mount and threw the rider to the ground.

No one could slow him. No one could tire him,
until the bravest fighter of them all
stood before him and with his cape and grace
took pass after pass and brought him to his knees.

The crowd chanted its approval. They'd seen
a work of art. And the idea, its hind legs
lashed to the horse, was, without dignity
and without ears, dragged from the dusty ring.

© copyright 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

The poet in me is a recluse

He doesn't want to be. He just withdraws.

Just some random and spontaneous thoughts on breaking into poetry

• Who do you read? I know people who go to art museums and look at an abstract and say. "My five-year-old could do and has done better than that." The truth is, there's a lot of abstract work I don't like. But unless I look at a lot of that, and where it came from, I can't critique it. And if I can't critique it, I can't do it. Do you read one poet? Do you read one style of poetry? The abstract painter I appreciate understands and can do perspective and realism. In fact, the realism painters I appreciate understand and can produce the abstract concepts that underlie it. The same is true with poetry. If you can't see what there is that connects Billy Collins, Alan Ginsburg, Ezra Pound, John Milton, John Keats, and Timothy Steele, you need to read more.
• Why do you want to write poetry? Do you have a vision to share? Or are you writing in your diary with broken lines? The point is poetry is an art form. If you want to become a poet, if you want to be read by other people, please make it because you want to share what you see. And to share, you have to be aware of an audience.
• How resilient are you? Poetry is an art of rejection. Most people aren't going to understand you. And the gatekeepers, the people who edit the journals where your poetry is going to be published, aren't even most people. And the natural response to rejection is to become imitative. When you do, you've destroyed your reason for being a poet.

the master s words

there is a way they have
............to make you feel dwarfed
....with all, their, commas,
.....and broken phrases
.......and misplaced parenthesis
........and wordsthatruntogether
........................to obliterate thoughts
it s a little like drinking christmas
............wine without a glass or
.......making illicit
love
........for the first time
they have a way to make you feel smaller than an ant
.........crawling across a super highway
but they lift you up above the clouds
.........................to drop you
........suddenly
..................falling
....................past birds
........................hurdling
........................downward
........................praying
........................for an updraft

Originally published in Wisconsin Review, May 1976.
published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

Flowers

water color on paper

It Was Just a Silly Typo

“Time came and went to fast.”
It gave up hours, minutes, gave up seconds.
It passed up the future, ignored the past.
All transactions pending were suspended.

Time came to seek a place of solitude,
To find a way that it could reckon
With the stationary sun over truths
And other matters it knew could not be answered

In earth’s day to day rotation. It called to
The stars to join them, to stop their dances.
It even asked the Western Wind to lie still
Against the water until it calmed the prancing

Waves. And when all things had bowed to time’s will,
Time rose again and went to have its fill.

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.

More signs of the time

Saw this in a gift shop on the square in Marietta, Georgia.

Hardwork must have killed someone.

Happy 4th.

Notes on Getting Published

(1) I once sent a group of poems to the Amherst Review. I waited a year to get a response. Finally, almost one year to the day after I sent them, I got a letter saying they wanted to publish one of the poems. I sent them the writer's info and waited again. One year later the issue with my poem was published.

They had left out a word.

(2) The only sure way to get published is to outlast the rejection slips.

(3) The times they are a changin.

Typically, when you send a poem to a literary journal, you can expect to wait anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months to get a response. Ideally you can use that time to get your mind off the work you just sent out and turn to other work that needs to be completed and sent out. Then when the to-be-expected rejection letter comes, it's no big deal, because you've already moved on to other things that have assumed greater priority. That let's you get reacquainted with the work that came back. You can look at it objectively and analyze it to determine whether you need to trash it, revise it, or simply find a better match to send it to.

But now we use the Internet to submit our work. Some journals still take three months to decide to tell you no. But one day last week, I got a rejection email 12 hours after I had sent the poems.

Problem/Solution

I know I haven't posted much about the agonies of editing recently. Wait. Come to think of it I haven't posted much of anything recently. Hmmmm. Well, anyway, as I was saying, I got this gem of a sentence today in an article about feeding an adult dog.

An adult dog's diet can contain up to 50% carbohydrates, including 2.5% to 4.5% fiber, according to the National Research Council, a scientific research unit of the nonprofit National Academies.

So...
.............. let's take a look at that sentence. First of all, it's 30 words. Now 30 words is a long sentence in an article aimed at an audience whose reading skills are defined as basic. The company I'm doing this work for defines basic as high school level. But that may actually be a little high for the general lay audience of adult readers they are trying to reach. When I edit or write for them, I shoot for an eighth grade reading level. (Which has nothing to do with the level of the intelligence of the audience. It only involves the ease with which the audience can take the information in.) The reason I aim for an 8th grade level is that a 6th grade level, which is more accurate, takes more time than they want to pay me for.

But this isn't really about reading level (or how much I get paid). It's about putting information in a sentence the audience can use. Now when we take a look at the sentence, it seems there's some important information in there. How do I know? Because there's a really impressive source being cited. Come on, we all know about the "National Research Council, a scientific research unit of the nonprofit National Academies," don't we?

PROBLEM # 1: Who says this (or "says what," because by the time I get to the end of the sentence I've forgotten what I was being told)? And why am I supposed to believe them? Their name sounds impressive. But who the hell are they? I just formed a group here in Atlanta where the CDC is located. We call ourselves the National Citizen's Healthcare Oversight Committee. Now we're probably going to be able to convince a lot of people about what we say. Why? Because we're right here where the CDC is.

Actually, my group is going to be more successful. Everybody has heard of the CDC. Well, not everybody, but enough. Can I have a show of hands. How many of you out there know what the "National Academies" are, or is it is?

Solution #1: Actually, I happen to know a little bit about both the National Academies and the National Research Council. But I'd have to Google them to be able to tell you who they are and what they do. And there was a paucity of hands raised just a moment ago.

So the first thing to ask as an editor is does the writer explain anywhere in the article who or what these agencies are? No. As a matter of fact, that is the only time their names appear in the article. So the solution seems easy. If you are going to call on an authority to vouch for your claim, then you need to make sure your readers know who that authority is. So the first option is to tell them.

But, no. That's a problem because it's going to take up a lot more space than it warrants and that's going to take the reader farther away from the real point of the article: What kind of dog food should I buy for my dog? (As I type this, Yeats is staring up at me with a hungry look in her eye. But then, she's still a puppy. Puppies are supposed to be hungry.)

The second thing I ask as an editor is do we really need the attribution. The answer is no. This is not a scientific paper for a peer reviewed journal. The website where this article will appear has a major reputation as an authoritative source. And underlying that is a rigorous fact checking and medical review process. Plus they hire good editors who are going to check these things out, even before the article gets to those stages. So we drop the attribution and come up with this:

An adult dog's diet can contain up to 50% carbohydrates, including 2.5% to 4.5% fiber.

Now that's much better. The message is clear with nothing about the National Academies to get in the way. It works because the website and the parent company have believability.

And look at that. I've actually solved two problems. I've cut the sentence in half. It's now just 15 words. A manageable chunk of information.

Problem #2: Yes there is a problem number 2. How do you calculate and confirm those percentages when you buy dog food. And I'll tell you that elsewhere in the article the writer pointed out that coming up with this information is hard because you can't rely on the label. And right. The writer didn't tell the reader how to determine the necessary percentages. Oh, me. An editor's work is never done.

Solution #2: Ignore the problem. Let the readers do some research of their own. You of course know that's not the correct answer. The correct answer is to send the article back to the writer and ask for more information. Taking the attribution out was an editor's call. Explaining how to figure the percentages is a writer's job.

Unfortunately, I didn't send it back. I didn't have time, and this article is part of a major launch, which is scheduled to happen very soon. My decision to let the article go as is was based on the fact that there was enough information in the article to make it useful and interesting and that it was an important part of the launch and needed to get into review. That was step 1 in figuring out a solution. Step 2 was realizing there really isn't enough time to make the article complete. It needs to go into review.

I would never knowingly make that kind of decision with an article that would involve injury. But now you know how articles that are less than perfect end up in print or on the web.

Protecting cyclists

A friend sent me these two awareness tests. Let me know how you do.

Here's the first:




And Here's the second:

Recommendations

I've spent most of the day looking at online literary journals. In particular, I'm looking at what gets published under the heading of poetry. Whenever I do that, I often come away discouraged about the lack of poetry in the poems that actually get published. Today was no exception. I did, though, find a couple of journals I would recommend. One is Boxcar Poetry Review, which has just published it's 20th issue. The other is Blackbird. I'd recommend spending a little time with each of them. And if you do, come back and let me know what you think.

Harvard Square

At Au Bon Pain the old men sit around
a table, scratch their noses, and contemplate
the fate of kings and queens then demonstrate
their prowess with a calculated frown.

A young musician plays her violin.
Her notes compete with phrases in the air
and foreign words that jostle through the square
like cups and napkins blowing in the wind.

Beside a tree a great dane lies untended,
doesn’t move for a boy with purple hair,
doesn’t mind a woman lost in prayer,
keeps its head down until, its vigil ended,
it rises when its master says, “Come on.”
Old men in baggy pants exchange their pawns.

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.


I had a conversation with an artist named Kashley yesterday. He was alone in a gallery in Roswell, Georgia. He had told the owners of the gallery, both of whom had other commitments, that he would mind the gallery for them since he was going to come in and paint there that day anyway. He has a series of limited edition still lifes that are all about cocktails, and he likes to display the original next to the reproduction so that people can see that the reproductions are not digitally enhanced. So he had an original there, and he was painting a new picture.

The pictures are extremely detailed. They include vodka bottles or whiskey bottles. A liquid being poured into a glass. Glass ashtrays. Cocktail glasses with olives in them. I'd seen the work before, and what I admire about it the most is the way he works with the transparency of the glass, the way the light plays through it and then through the liquid, and the way he handles the texture of the surfaces that can be seen through the glass--a table, or a wall, or a fireplace.

It takes him three months to complete one of the paintings. The process begins with staging the still life and taking hundred of pictures of it. Then he takes a month to complete the first rough painting, which he then goes back to and paints over, filling in detail and pulling out color and light. This second painting takes another month. He then repeats the process again, adding more detail and removing brush strokes.

He also does abstracts which grow out of the textures and colors he finds in nature. He's been painting professionally, he told me, since 2006, and he currently has work in galleries in three different states. You can see some of his work on his Web site here, but it's much more impressive when you can see the actual work in front of you.

I enjoy the paintings, and I enjoyed the conversation with him. And I enjoyed watching him work. I have no other reason for telling you about him than that.

This Fascinates Me

Ok. Cloudia caught me sitting at my desk and really made me feel guilty with her latest comment on my last post. (If you've never visited her at Comfort Spiral you are really missing something special.)

I promise I'm coming back to the Blogosphere soon. But I have been busy writing articles about the health benefits of having pets, Ewing's sarcoma, DTaP, and the like, and editing articles about things like rheumatoid arthritis or how to get your dog to eat dog food. (My days are simply eclectic.)

But I am coming back. In the meantime I found this little gem by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and thought you might enjoy it. (I was looking for a video of the theme to High Noon, but came across this instead and found it fascinating.) Have fun. And in the meantime, please do not forsake me. . .

Moonlight

One thing I never shared with you
..........was the moon outside my window
..........when I was a child in August
..........with a chill in the summer air.
It was so clear and white
..........that late at night
..........it had to be closer than it really was.

Published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.

© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.

All rights reserved.

Some thoughts about other things

My father was an artist. He used to tell me that anyone could draw. Although, he did manage to let me know that he didn't think I did a very good job at it. He also wasn't very enthusiastic about my poetry when I was a teenager.

My youngest brother and my second son got his talent.

I did enter art work in the fair when I was a kid. I got my share of ribbons. But I never felt like I really understood what my father did when he painted, or worked with clay, or did pieces in enamel.

As a teenager, I liked to work with chalk and also oil pastels. I liked the feel of using my fingers to blend the colors in a sky and on a lake.

I drew pictures once in a while, mainly sketches and doodles, after I became an adult. But I didn't get serious about it again -- and I'm really stretching it to say serious -- until we moved to New Jersey in 2000. Then I started working with watercolors. They were crude, but S liked them and started buying me more paints, pencils, sketch pads. And I kept it up after we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, a year and a half later. I did more pencil sketches than anything. I like to draw.

Two years later we moved back up to Massachusetts, and I lost the incentive. So the art activity (and the photography I'd been getting more and more into) dropped way off. Now that we live in Atlanta, I'm interested in doing more art.

When I was young, I never thought my father was very successful at teaching me to draw, which was strange because for years he taught art to kids in his home on Saturdays, and a number of them went on eventually to study art and take it up as a career. But now when I do pick up a drawing pencil, I can hear him standing behind me telling me I wasn't doing something right and know that I did, after all, learn something.

If you haven't visited Rene at Not the Rockefellers, you should. I feel like I learn something about writing when I read her blog. And I really like her mission statement: "To inspire and encourage others to write freely." It's followed by a wonderful quote from Martha Graham. Check it out at the top of the left hand sidebar.

In Between

Original artwork by the Grandpa

Deaths and Funerals

She removes a book
From the broken shelf and lets
An envelope fall
From between pages

Then spreads its contents
Before her and counts, twelve red
Petals with a card,
Its message blurred by

Water from greens. She
Opens the Morning
News, wanting to read again
His name and feel young

Arms suddenly lift
Here from the floor to sway her
To the melodies
She’d thought she’d forgot.

Originally published in Ohio Journal, Autumn 1979.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.

I have a new poem scheduled for publication in the July issue of The Chimaera an online "literary miscellany." The poem is "Captain Lee," and it will appear in the journal's Feature Theme section. The Feature Theme for Issue 6 is "poems in well-wrought form."

I've actually seen worse

[The person who sent this list of hospital chart bloopers to the listserve for freelance medical writers I'm on said she couldn't vouch for the veracity of the list. But believe me, I've seen worse. I'm willing to bet these were actually entered on patients' charts. The comments in brackets are mine. Enjoy.]

HOSPITAL CHART BLOOPERS....

Actual writings from hospital charts:

1. The patient refused autopsy.
[My mother once called me and left a message saying that my sister-in-law's breast cancer surgery had gone well, my sister-in-law was doing fine, and they'd have the results of the autopsy in a couple of days.]

2. The patient has no previous history of suicides.
[Thank God for that. Hospitals need all the paying patients they can get.]

3. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.

4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot
in bed last night.
[Probably sprained something.]

5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.

6. On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it disappeared.

7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
[You think?]

8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
[It's not me, Doc. It's you.]

9. Discharge status: Alive but without permission.

10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.

11. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.

12. She is numb from her toes down.

13. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.

14. The skin was moist and dry.

15. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.

16. Patient was alert and unresponsive.

17. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid.
[Sure glad I wasn't the patient!]

18. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got
a divorce.
[That's what happens when the guy you marry turns out to be an absolute s***.]

19. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.

20. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.

21. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.

22. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.

23. Skin: somewhat pale but present.

24. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.

25. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.
[I had that once. It seemed to last forever.]

Brandy and Poets

For scrambled eggs and bushy haired poets,
A toast with brandy at three a.m.
For piano players and wooden back benches
Stories we’d tell never again.
Brandy and poets and breakfast in bed.

Dreams and words; how we both did know it
Over stingers and bourbons at one a.m.
Impossible dreams, emotional wrenches,
Stories they’d tell of us time and again
When dreamers and poets both dropped over dead.

Originally published in Post Crescent, March 1975.
Published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.

(Figure I'd better post something. Yesterday I had 0 page hits.)