Sad Poetry News, Happy Music News

It's interesting how we make friends these days on the internet. Most of us with some degree of life experience can intuitively tell when we're meeting someone genuine, and it's really possible to form a "friendship" electronically. That said, when you lose a friend you've met this way, it's almost as intense as losing any other friend. My Canadian poet friend Maureen Glaude passed away this past week after a long battle with cancer. She was 53. She was well-loved on Pathetic.org, and she was a talented and active woman who always had kind words for everyone. She was a very good poet, and I especially liked her haiku, so in her memory I wrote a haiku for her:

her desk lamp turned out -
the Ottawa skyline
is one light dimmer

You can visit her library here.

On a somewhat more upbeat note, I will have a few poems appearing in a new online journal called Word Catalyst, in August and September. More on that later.

Music: I attended WXPN's "Xpontential Music Festival" at Wiggins Park in Camden NJ on Saturday. (It's actually a 4-day festival, but I could only get away for one.) The weather was picture-perfect, and a couple of my friends and I enjoyed some really fine music. In order of favorites, I heard:

1. Los Lonely Boys - I knew I liked these guys - I have a few of their albums - and I'd heard how they can tear it up live. Now I know. They were fantastic! The three Garza brothers, on guitar, bass and drums, are amazingly talented musically, a mix of Santana, Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, what they call "Texican rock n'roll". Some folks might think their performance was a bit showy and over the top, but they got everyone on their feet and got the biggest cheers of the night. And granted, they could be better lyricists. But man, that doesn't matter much when they play like they do.

2. The Cat Empire - The biggest surprise of the day for me. This six-piece band from Australia plays a blend of ska, rock, jazz and a pinch of hip-hop, with great percussion, keyboards, rhythm guitar, vocals and two trumpets. My son listened to them and said they sounded like what would happen if G. Love started a ska band. Sounds about right. They also remind me a little bit of Cake. They had lots of energy, and the majority of the XPN "boardies" I surveyed thought they were the best act of the day.

3. Will Hoge - This guy from Nashville had a cookin' roots-rock band, almost a Springsteen kind of vibe going on. The other pleasant surprise of the day.

4. Ryan Shaw - This young soul singer with a strong gospel background (and his frequent references to God made that obvious to the crowd) has an amazing set of pipes and sounds like a throwback to 60's and 70's Motown and Memphis sounds. No surprise, though, as I was already a fan - I downloaded his album from iTunes a few weeks ago. I got to meet him afterward and got an autograph - nice guy.

5. Hoots and Hellmouth - a local acoustic band that's getting some good national buzz, with an eccentric, passionate leader. Hard to describe them - kind of a bluegrass/folk-rock jam band. I liked them.

6. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - I left during their set only because I was getting tired and wanted to beat the crowds, but she and her band were a good blues-rock unit. A bit anticlimactic though, after Los Lonely Boys tore up the place.

7. Martin Sexton - a excellent singer-songwriter, but someone had to be last on this list. Suffice to say I didn't hear anyone on Saturday I didn't like.

There was one downside to the day, but not personally. Some drunk in an SUV rammed through the gates and plowed into a trailer in the festival area. A couple of people were injured, but fortunately not seriously. All in all, it was a good day for music.

MMMM (Most Memorable Music Moments)

Supplemental music entry: WXPN just announced their "885 Greatest" list for this year: they've had great countdowns the last 3 years featuring the 885 greatest songs, albums, and artists of all time, as voted by the listeners. This year it's a more personal theme: "885 Most Memorable Music Moments". It's up to us to decide whether to include archival, historic moments that affected everyone, or personal moments that were special to the individual. Just off the top of my head, here's a chronological list of 10 moments that were most memorable for me:

1. 1964: The Beatles on Ed Sullivan (everyone my age will have this one on their list!)
2. 1967: Hearing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the very first time.
3. 1969: Attending the Atlantic City Pop Festival (2 weeks before Woodstock and every bit as good, but without the mud).
4. 1969: Seeing Miles Davis at the Village Vanguard.
5. 1971: Getting a DJ job at my college radio station, WRLC, Livingston College (Rutgers U.)
6. 1986: Hearing my very first song on CD ("Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp) - I bought my first CD player a week later.
7. 1987: Winning a one-hour gig as "guest DJ" on WIOQ-FM in Philly. (They switched from adult alternative rock to oldies two weeks later - it wasn't my fault!)
8. 1992(?): Singing the chorus to an acoustic cover of "In Your Eyes" with Jeffrey Gaines (and the rest of the audience) at the WXPN "5-Star Night" at Mann Music Center in Philadelphia - the recording of that concert performance later became a popular radio hit.
9. 1999: Meeting my musical idol, Richard Thompson, at the WXPN "Singer-Songwriter Weekend".
10. 2005: Getting my first iPod.

Perhaps, if you are so inclined, you'd like to share your top musical memories here. Don't be shy!

Haiku and The Best Music Year

Good news on the publication front: I had four haiku published in an Australian print haiku journal, Paper Wasp - yesterday I got their Winter 2007 issue in the mail (I did a double-take -isn't it a little late for Winter 2007? Then I realized that it's winter now Down Under.) It's exciting because it's the first time I've had haiku published in a "legitimate" haiku-only journal. (I've had a few published a few years ago in journals that weren't exclusively for haiku, which means they are a little less selective in regard to the form.) I'd tried some of the better American haiku journals (Frogpond, The Heron's Nest, The Acorn, and Roadrunner) but to no avail. Then a poetry acquaintance on the poetry community site, Pathetic.org (who happens to be an excellent, award winning haiku poet) suggested I try Paper Wasp. Good advice - thank you, Agnes! Here are the haiku they published (you won't find them on their website, but maybe later when they feaure selections from their 2007 issues):

April snow
almost as white as
the apple blossoms

______________

slice a peach
surprise the sunrise
inside

______________

humid evening -
mosquitoes sing in my ear
before dinner

______________

morning rain -
under the weeping cherry
a dead robin

______________



Music: Downloaded from iTunes, Writers Block by Swedish band Peter, Bjorn and John (or "PB&J" as they're cleverly known) - really good album with an eclectic range of pop stylings. "Young Folks" is the breakout track, and after repeated listenings it's become a bit annoying (a bit on the "twee" side with a lost of whistling). But the rest of the album is definitely worthwhile.

WXPN, my favorite radio station on the planet, had a really fun programming day on Saturday - they played nothing but songs from 1967. Pop, rock, psychedelia, blues, jazz, country, folk, just about every genre. What a great year for music! Maybe I'm only saying that because i was 16 at the time, but still, I'll put that it up against any other when it comes to great music years. This was the year of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's..., The Doors first album, Buffalo Springfield's second album, Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, Aretha Franklin's "Respect", James Brown's "Cold Sweat", Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced?, Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, Cream's Disraeli Gears, and debut albums from The Grateful Dead, Velvet Underground, Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin), and Procol Harum, and a whole bunch of classic Motown hits.

Still dealing with car woes, but won't bore you with the details. That's it for now!

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.