Cars Redux

More car misfortune: Last Tuesday my son, who's only been driving regularly for about a month (to work and back mostly) was rear-ended about four blocks from home while stopped to make a left-hand turn. The woman who struck him said she was distracted by a young bicycler who threatened to swerve in front of her. The car, a 1992 Plymouth, is totaled. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Ironically, the other driver is a personal injury lawyer, but she admitted from the beginning that it was her fault, and her insurance company intends to pay for everything. Of course, we'll be lucky to get more than $2000 for the car, even though it had only about 86,000 miles on it. So now we are in the unusual position of having had two serious accidents in the family within 10 days of each other (neither of which was our fault). Fortunately again, our insurance has a rental car provision, so my wife and I are driving his-and-hers Ford Focuses until things get sorted out with our cars. And we still have the other two cars which the sons will drive.

Not much new on the poetry front - still in a major creative slump. Waiting to hear on my other submissions. Picked up a volume of poetry by A.R. Ammons which I intend to read.

Music: I just saw the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston - fascinating bio of a creative but tortured soul - sort of like Brian Wilson but even further out there. He grew up in West Virginia in a fundamentalist Christian household but always aspired to be a songwriter. artist and musician. He chronicled his life from his early teens through a series of home movies and self-produced music tapes, and he had a history of mental illness - mainly manic depression with paranoid delusions. But he developed a cult following largely from his tireless self-promotion - he serendipitously landed in Austin, Texas in the mid-1980's just as that city's music scene was exploding, and succeeded not only in winning some awards at the annual music festival, but even insinuating himself onto MTV. But mainstream fame always eluded him, despite having influential fans like Kurt Cobain and Yo La Tengo. He sabotaged a generous major label contract because he was too paranoid at the time to sign it, and he went through a period where he ranted on about the Devil (hence the movie's title). But it's a fascinating film, and he's had a bit of redemption in the end. See it if you can.

Most recent album acquisitions:
1. Dog Problems by the Format (bombastic power pop - think Queen and Jellyfish with a dash of Squeeze thrown in, and a bit of old-style dance hall music)
2. This is Ryan Shaw by Ryan Shaw (a throwback to the old 60's and 70's Memphis soul sound, and he's got a great voice to carry it).

That's all for now - I'll give you my latest poem, a "double dactyl" (a humorous form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal) about our "leader of the free world".

Dubya Dactyl

Hubble-yoo, bubble-yoo,

President “W”,

malaprop champ, no one

else can compete.

His forte’s not to speak

extemporaneous –

with foot-in-mouth one can’t

think on one’s feet.

A Quick Rundown....

...of my week: (1) car problems, (2) car problems, and (3) car problems. We own four cars, two of which are driven by our older sons, and we had problems with three of them in the past week.
1. My wife was in an accident last Saturday when a guy blew a stop sign and she sideswiped him near the shore. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but she was very upset, not only because of the damage to her beloved PT Cruiser, but also because the policeman implied that she was at fault - she had the freakin' right of way and wasn't speeding!
2. The radiator went in the van I drive. Six hundred bucks.
3. The battery died in the car my one son drives, and my other son (the same evening, no less) locked the keys in his car and I had to rescue him.
It's enough to make you take the bus.

It's also been an interesting week because, while all this was going on, I had a medical procedure on Wednesday. No big deal, just one of those things they think all folks my age should have. All I'll say is they gave me some nice pictures of a certain internal region. I'd share them with you, but thought you might rather take a pass, so I won't impose them on you. Everything so far looks okay.

Not much poetry happening this week - I'm stymied creatively - not even the writing exercises seems to be working for me. I did judge an online poetry contest this week, which I sponsored, and though I didn't agree with the other judges on the final choice, the winning poem was rather brief and witty. I sent the winner ( a guy in Texas) a copy of my latest chapbook and the latest issue of Journal of New Jersey Poets.

Music: I still haven't figured out how to link a video to my blog directly, so this will have to do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp6_mt7XRtg
It's a video by Canadian artist Feist, who I'm really starting to warm up to. My son turned me on to this video, which is quite clever, and the music is great too. Check it out.

Poem of the Week: How about this one, which won the 2003 ByLine Magazine Short Fiction and Poetry Award. It's about my visit to the historic home of Walt Whitman, just a few miles from my house. Bye for now!

328 Mickle Boulevard

Walk through this city of noise,
of horns and sirens and shouting,
and find a nondescript two-story house
across from the bars and wires
of the new prison.

A guide invites you into a quiet parlor,
where you find rockers in every corner,
floral wallpaper in clashing patterns,
the Victorian style,
paintings and daguerrotypes
of somber men and women,
his friends and acquaintances,

and a photograph of him sitting
by the corner window,
the light catching him, illuminating
his great white bush of a beard,
the same light glinting off a decanter,
placed in the center of a jumble of pens,
papers and books.

Legend says he would throw money
out the window to passersby.
You can almost hear the neighborhood kids
whispering about “mad old Mr. Whitman.”
Yet he held court here in Camden those last years,
entertaining the likes of Dickens and Wilde.

Upstairs in the bed chamber,
papers are stacked all about the floor,
as though he has just taken a break from
the latest revision of Leaves of Grass.
A cane leans in the corner,
perhaps the same one he used to rap the floor
and tell his housekeeper to quiet
her infernal dog’s barking.

You half-expect the old Yawper to lumber in the door,
rumpled, wide-brimmed hat over his eyes,
and converse with us about
the restoration of the Union, the rights of women,
the bountiful apple trees in his back garden.

As you descend the back stairs to leave,
the stained glass window over the landing
filters the afternoon sun –
bright blocks of red, yellow and blue
wash you in color
like an old benediction.

On Fathers, Among Other Things

Last week I finished of a pretty active week-and-a-half of poetry by MC'ing a gathering in Haddonfield hosted by Ilise Feitshans, who does these events out of her home about 2-3 times a year and calls them "Poetry by Candlelight". We had refreshments on her backyard patio, and then I read for about twenty minutes and was well-received. We had an open reading, too, with some other local poets, including my friend Sheila McDonald, and some of the kids who came along read their favorite children's poems from Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, et al. It was a beautiful night weather-wise and poetry-wise, and although we only had maybe 15 people, including kids, it was quite enjoyable. And I sold a couple of books!

I've been submitting like a nut lately - sent off four poems to Poetry (well, why not), U.S. 1 Worksheets, Edison Literary Review, and Mad Poets Review (the rest of whom have all published me before, which gives me pretty good odds). I also entered the Shadow Poetry Biannual Chapbook Contest with a manuscript entitled Octaves - all the poems contained therein have exactly eight lines, but thematically and form-wise, they're all over the place. My son Jeremy once again did a fine job designing the cover. The prize is $100, 50 copies of the book, and 25% royalties on any book sold on Shadow Poetry's website. Fingers crossed!

Summer vacation is here, and Ryan, my youngest, couldn't be happier. He graduated from fifth grade on Wednesday - it was a wonderful ceremony, featuring performances by the band and chorus (both of which he is a member). And he was very proud to get straight A's for the year!
Next week he starts four weeks of theater camp, then two weeks of Boy Scout sleepaway camp. He's got a full dance card this summer.

Father's Day was low-key but good - I stained the deck and got the grill primed up for my first barbecuing of the season (burgers, of course). I got a couple of nice shirts and a Netflix subscription. Already saw my first movie from Netflix this week: The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith - rather appropriate movie coming off of Father's Day. Will Smith's young son Jaden, who plays his son in the movie, was excellent.

Music: Got the box set Forecast: Tomorrow by Weather Report, a four-disc CD/DVD career retrospective. In case you don't know, Weather Report was the premier jazz-rock fusion band in the 1970's and into the 80's. They had a hit with "Birdland" in 1977, I believe. Their only serious competition was John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra and Chick Corea's Return to Forever. Interestingly, the founding members of all of these groups (Weather Report was founded by Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul) worked at one time or other - some of them together - with Miles Davis, particularly on the In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew sessions. Anyway, the Weather Report box set is excellent. I haven't seen the DVD yet, which is supposed to be the video of a killer concert they did in 1978.

I'll leave you tonight with a poem I wrote about five years ago, when I just got my barbecue grill. (I'd dropped some heavy hints for a new one for Father's Day, but to no avail. Maybe next year....) So here it is:

BBQ

What is this primordial urge
that lures us men outside,
we, who chafe in the kitchen,

only to sear meat alfresco,
taking pride in parallel lines
black-grilled on our product?

Some archetypal memory
grabs us – the time we used
this new technology, fire,

for light and heat, and suddenly,
accidentally, they say, for cooking,
the fresh kill for the family
skewered on a stick in a flame.

No matter that this modern bounty
wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam
came home in a paper bag.

It’s the offering up that satisfies,
the sacrifice of sustenance
over hot coals,

the charcoal smoke to the heavens,
the ancestors smiling down
on my grill, my gift from the family
for Father’s Day.

Hello Again!

It's high time I updated this sucker. I was at the Philadelphia Writers Conference this past weekend, and in the session on blogging, the presenter said you have to post regularly, whether it's daily, weekly, or whatever, to expect to get any kind of regular audience.

Speaking of The PWC, this year was the third year in a row I attended, and it was possibly the best one yet. The poetry instructors, Leonard Gontarek and Aaren Yeatts Perry, were both excellent, and the other workshops were quite good too. But the highlight for me was winning first prize in one of the three poetry contests for my poem, "Dream". The prize is free tuition for next year's contest plus a small cash prize. I actually went for free this year, too, thanks to winning first prize last year as well (and second prize too). I can't print "Dream" below because I've submitted it for publication elsewhere. ("Elsewhere" is Poetry magazine, where I have a snowball's chance in you-know-where, but at least this summer they're accepting poetry only from poets who have not been published there previously.

Hung with my homeys at the Quick and Dirty Poets meeting tonight. (Alas, Anna was at a reading in North Jersey tonight.) Great bunch of folks, and incredibly talented too. We enjoyed a nice backyard barbecue (thanks, Don) and swapped critique of our poems. Donna, our "honorary" member, wrote an incredible three-piece (triptych) poem about spontaneous human combustion.

Music: Most recently enjoyed the Faces 2-disc "Definitive" collection. You can read my review on Amazon.com (I'm thinking of switching my reviews over here - I wouldn't get nearly as many reads, but at least I would still own the reviews.) The Faces weren't technically a "pub band", but they sounded like one - what the Stones would have been if they didn't start to get arrogant. And Rod Stewart was their front man, before he forgot how to rock. His mates weren't too shabby either: Ronny Wood (who later joined the Stones), Kenney Jones (later joined the Who), Ian MacLaglen and Ronnie Lane.

That's enough for now, kids. It's 11:56 and we old folks turn into pumpkins at midnight. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with my poem that appeared in this year's issue of
Journal of New Jersey Poets:


Mister Peanut in Atlantic City

For years you could see him
in front of the Planter’s Peanut shop
on the Boardwalk. Dressed to the nines,
this six-foot legume sported top hat,
monocle, spats and cane.
He waved a white-gloved hand
to passersby, patted children on the head,
while standing outside the store
where the aroma of roasted nuts
enveloped him like a cologne.
Kids and pigeons loved to hang out here.

If you were lucky enough to have some change,
you could go inside and buy some of his wares,
or at least a red plastic bank in his likeness,
with a long slot in the back of his head,
where you’d put your nickels and dimes,
saving for a game of miniature golf,
a box of boardwalk fudge, or even more peanuts.

I imagined him stepping out in his younger days
with that little tycoon from the Monopoly cards.
They’d check out the 500 Club,
the little tycoon with a diminutive blonde on his arm,
Mr. P. with an exotic Brazil nut, or a Jordan almond
in a pink candy coating, her perfect manicure.

He disappeared when the casinos sprang up,
but he was an institution in his time,
welcoming visitors with a handshake
and a painted-on smile,
as the city around him
slowly turned into an empty shell.

Graduation!

Last week was a busy time in the Niedt household, with not one but two sons graduating from college - on the same day! My wife and I had to spread ourselves pretty thin. My 21-year-old graduated from Rutgers College in New Brunswick with a B.A. in language and linguistics (Phi Beta Kappa, with high honors). The university commencement, which my wife attended, was on Wednesday. (Tavis Smiley of PBS was the keynote speaker - my wife said he was great.) Thursday afternoon was the college graduation, where he actually received his diploma. I attended that ceremony (James Gandolfini, an alum, was an honored guest), while my wife attended our older son's art exhibition and reception at Rutgers in Camden, where he is graduating with a B.A. in art. His graduation ceremony was that evening, so I had to shuttle from one campus to the other (two hours by train) to get there just in time. It was a tiring but wonderful day. Now the hard part comes for both of them: getting a job!

Some good news on the poetry front: (1) My poem, "Crackle of Stars", was accepted by the online journal Flutter for their June issue. You can check it out (after the 1st, I presume), at
http://www.freewebs.com/rarepetal/index.htm
(2) Edison Literary Review, who have published me three times and are about to publish me again, have posted one of my poems, "52 Pickup", on their sample page: http://www.edisonliteraryreview.org/samples.html
(3) I got an encouraging letter from an Australian haiku journal, Paper Wasp, that they are considering my haiku for their next issue, due in September.

My friend Anna Evans, an estimable poet, alerted me and her other poet friends to the fact that Poetry Magazine is accepting "open" submissions for the months of June, July and August - i.e., they will only consider submissions from poets who have never been published in their journal before. This makes the odds a little better to get into the premier poetry journal in the U.S. Even though my chances are slim to none, I'll give it a go. "You can't win if you don't play!"
If you're interested (bonus: they pay $10 a line!), here's the link:
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/about/guidelines.html

In the spirit of graduation, today's poem is in honor of my oldest son, who's finishing his doctoral thesis at UC Berkeley. The form is a "diamante" - the explanation is a little lengthy, so I invite you to look it up: http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/amy/algebra/
5-6/activities/poetry/diamante.htm

Higher Education

student

inquisitive, conscientious

reading, writing, calculating

courses, thesis -- degree, career

researching, lecturing, mentoring,

authoritative, informative

professor

Music, Music, Music

A few random rambles tonight on on the subject of music:

1. The year 2007 seems to be off to a rather slow start, at least for me. I've only acquired about four CD releases from this year so far, and of those, only one has impressed me as ahead of the pack: The Shins' Wincing the Night Away. Some very catchy tunes here, particularly "Australia" and "Phantom Limb". So far, though, nothing has really knocked my socks off like last year's The Crane Wife by the Decemberists - I still consider that to be probably the best CD I've heard in the new millennium.

2. Two online music services I recommend: Lala.com and YourMusic.com.
Lala is a great CD-swapping service that works like this: when you join, you create two lists of CD's you own, and CD's you want. The club provides your shipping materials and postage. You're only charged a nominal fee ($1.75 including shipping/handling) for each CD you receive. I've got over 80 CD's so far (not one defective, by the way, though some have surface scratched) and I've actually got some relatively hard-to-find CD's this way.
YourMusic.com, run by BMG, is a great way to get new CD's at a reasonable price. Their only catch is that you must order at least one CD a month at $6.99 plus tax (no shipping and handling), and the CD is automatically mailed the same day each month, from a queue of selections that you set up. You can order more at that same price if you wish (even box sets are only $6.99 per disc).

3. Favorite radio station: WXPN, 88.5FM in Philly - in my opinion, the best adult alternative station in the country. Excellent website, too, with streaming, bulletin boards, blogs, downloads, etc.: xpn.org

4. Most recent CD acquisitions:
Corinne Bailey Rae - self-titled album (mellow jazz-pop, like Norah Jones but British and bit funkier)
James Hunter - People Gonna Talk: another young Brit artist, kind of a Sam Cooke thing going on - mellow blue-eyed soul
Danielia Cotton - Small White Town: I've been a fan ever since seeing her live two summers ago, but only recently got her CD. What a wailing voice! She's been compared to Janis Joplin - I don't see much stylistic similarity, but like Janis, she can really belt out some bluesy rock.

Hey, how about I close with a music poem:

Refrain

Old melodies
galvanize our memories.

Durable as metalplate,
they spring to action,

when car radios issue classics
and we hum along:

Glenn Miller, the Beatles, Madonna –
each evokes the ghost of its time.

Visions of jitterbugs
dance in our heads,

or protest marches,
disco mirrorballs,

or some moment that defined us:
meeting a future wife,

a best friend’s death,
the day you bought that old Chevy.

These soundtracks of youth
move us most, pull the psyche

back to when we passed
from innocence to confidence.

Archived dreams transfix us
like mosquitoes in amber,

stuck in the sap of prehistory,
frozen in the moment

when our wings would sing at sixteen,
and we’d feast on the blood of the world.

Paranoia Strikes Deep

I'ts hard these days not to be paranoid and distrustful of your fellow man, when you think the guy standing in front of you in the checkout line could be plotting to blow up a public building. This little ramble is courtesy of today's big news item: six would-be terrorists were arrested in a foiled plot to attack Ft. Dix, the New Jersey Army base, and kill as many soldiers as possible. All were apparently radical Muslims, but the scary thing is that four of them were from my home town of Cherry Hill, NJ. And apparently some of them had actually graduated from high school here. This, coupled with the Virginia Tech shootings last month, really give one the unsettling feeling that nowhere is safe any more.

I have a connection to the Virginia Tech tragedy too: one of the students critically injured was Sean McQuade, who is my nephew's half-brother. I didn't know Sean, but I certainly know my nephew, who was pretty close to him and very broken up over it. Sean, who was shot in the face, is making some progress, but it will be a long road to recovery for him.

This is a relatively slow week activity-wise for me, but next week will be real busy: we've got two sons graduating from Rutgers - different campuses, too, so there will be a lot of shuffling and shuttling of family members. It'll be great, though. This Thursday I'll meet with my buddies at Quick and Dirty Poets for critique and general hijinks. By the way, here's our website so you can see what kind of shenanigans we've been up to: http://quickanddirtypoets.com/

I'll leave you with a poem, as I like to do. This is a sonnet I wrote which was published in this year's issue of US 1 Worksheets:

Chocolate and Tylenol

A friend confides her love of chocolate
at lunch – sweet-bitter taste on parted lips,
aroma waft to nose, the melt on hot
wet tongue, and brown smear licked from fingertips.

But headaches are the price she pays for lust
of cocoa-flavored sweets, and she admits,
I like it so, I cannot quit – I trust
in analgesic pills before it hits.

She’d rather risk effects of her excess
Than do without this sweet surrender,
and deems this regimen a fair success
when dealing with a frequent chocolate bender.

And that’s just how it is with you for me,
Except I’ve yet to find your remedy.