Fearless Leaders, Snow, & Whatnot

DC folks know that I'm proud to be on the Board for the Writer's Center. I joined the Board soon after Charles Jensen came on as the Director. I feel a kinship with Charlie because we are both younger poets; when I learned he was the new director, I knew that signaled the onset of long-overdue growth and change.

So it's no surprise--but still merits a hearty YEAH!--to announce that Charlie has just been elected to the Emerging Leader Council of Americans for the Arts, which is now in its 10th year. He is one of seven new members and the only representative of the literary arts. ELC members engage the field of arts leadership on the national level, learn firsthand about new programs and resources (courtesy of Americans for the Arts), and are charged with designing and implementing programs for their peers.

This is a roundabout way of saying that Charlie is awesome, and has jump-started the Writer's Center's activities and goals. Because of his service he is being asked to share his leadership principles on a national level, and in return will receive some much-merited attention and support for his own professional career.

...Which is a roundabout way of saying I'm glad to be along for the ride. If you're a writer who has not volunteered, think about doing so in 2010. I'm not a do-gooder. I'm infamous for not recycling. I hate to admit it, but I've never ladled soup in a community kitchen. But I do support my local writing community, at all skills levels, from all backgrounds, and people like Charlie inspire me to do more.

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So, we've had some snow. We've had a lot of snow. 16 inches, best as I can tell from what is piled up on our balcony--an unusually deep snowfall for downtown. Fun to walk in on the first day, when pedestrians took over and the snow was still falling; not so fun on the second day, when cars reclaimed roads and we had to jump slushy curb-moats four inches deep. Why do people panic over grocery supplies in a city? The local bakeries sold out on Friday night. Seriously, people, there are five grocery stores and umpteen restaurants within a five-block radius. Take snow for what its worth: an excuse to stay in with soup, or venture out for a snowball fight. Don't buy six loaves of whole wheat as if the apocalypse is nigh.

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Another snow pastime: Breaking Bad. I'd pitched Netflix-ing this series a few times over the past year, based on my love for Bryan Cranston courtesy of Malcolm in the Middle, the early years. But it wasn't until the wrap of Mad Men and Top Chef that we were driven to give this show a shot. The verdict, based on Season One: Love it. The pace is a little wobbly and the premise is fundamentally grim, but the acting is spot-on. (This is something I also could have also said about X-Files, and sure enough the show's creator, Vince Gilligan, worked on that show as well.) I like Weeds, but this is the anti-Weeds--no broad humor, no perky set design, no pretending the drug world is run by sexy MILFs. Season Two awaits!

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Below is a call for submissions from Persea, a truly wonderful independent press that (always a bonus) distributes its books through W. W. Norton. They have decided to begin sponsoring another prize in the name of Lexi Rudnitsky, a wonderful poet who died too young. Through these tragic circumstances comes something promising--a post first-book award, which is a precious commodity in the poetry world. Check it out....

Small Ways to Survive the Holidays

-Pet a puppy.

-Find a can or jar of something past its expiration date in your kitchen, and throw it away. Don't try to convince yourself of its use. Junk it. Don't look back.

-Read Donald Hall's Life Work. 

-Buy a new scarf in a ridiculous pattern.

-Apple cider + Leopold's Three Pins Alpine Herbal Liqueur + low heat + espresso-sized mug.

-Bring a live flower into your home whose shape and color scheme has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. A yellow rose. A spray of purple tulips.

-Pick one calendar day between now and the end of the year and book yourself a cheap, comfort-food dinner out. Soup, bagel, happy-hour sushi, whatever. Every other day can get booked to the gills, but keep that dinner clear. Take a trashy magazine to read. Talk to no one.

-In DC? Go visit the trains at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.

-Select a large Ritz cracker. Smother with chunky peanut butter. Drizzle with honey, ideally issued from a bear-shaped container. Eat. Repeat.

-Two words: duckpin bowling.

Verse Daily

Somewhere around the time I was crossing my t's and dotting my i's on the report from Pittsburgh, my poem "Antietam" (featured in the new issue of Gulf Coast) went up on Verse Daily. Hooray!

O City (My Trip)

First, a poem by Jack Gilbert:

TEAR IT DOWN

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.

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This is one of my favorites by Jack Gilbert, and I found myself thinking of it during this weekend in Pittsburgh. Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.

FRIDAY

You know what bodes well? When you roll into town after five draining hours on the road, and the place that you stop in, a block away from your host's house--determined to regain your sanity through food, before meeting people--turns out to be vegan, tasty, and cheap. Meet Quiet Storm coffeehouse, where I feasted on ginger-lemonade, vegetable curry, and a poppyseed slaw that was so tasty I had it for breakfast with my bagel when we returned on Sunday morning.

Dave English, my host, is a formally trained artist/puppeteer and a creative force behind the Schmutz Company.  Knowing I was slated to take part in the Typewriter Girls show on Sunday, he invited me up a couple of days early to make a cameo appearance at his Burned! house party, which was part of the Penn Avenue Arts' unBlurred monthly first-Friday open-studio night. Frankly, I'd have driven up from DC just to see Dave's house. Top to bottom, it is curated in a way that shows Dave is an artist: hand-hewn and asymmetric woodwork, cork figures jumping out from the living room walls (the puppet in the above image has taken up new residence in a Christmas wreath), display nooks cut into the drywall, a paper mache skeleton on a stretcher hoisted high into the peaked ceiling.

The party kicked ass. It began quietly, with a few of us drawn to the craft table (raffia, glue guns, foam and glitter) like moths to the flame, amped up with a series of sets from The 4 Roses (a blend of country, rock and originals: "Music to drink, cry, and kill to and/or over"), progressed into "El Paso," a heartbreaking silhouette play from the brilliant Flora Shepherd and the tuneful Missy Rateman, and culminating in some fire juggling in the backyard by Dave Doyle.

Did I mention there was a fire pit in the backyard? A heart-shaped firepit? A place to stand, until 2 in the morning, ignoring that the fact that my whole coat was being infused with raw woodsmoke, sipping from my flask of scotch? Oh, and that somewhere in the middle of all that, we had an improvised one-act involving much kvetching and moaning over broken hearts, a trio of poems, and luring Dave out from the bathroom even after his head had transmogrified into an oversized skull-monster?

Just another Friday on the road.

SATURDAY

I did nothing poetic on Saturday. Instead I went to Fallingwater...

...in the snow. Not so much to make the drive truly treacherous, thank goodness, but enough so that they had a fire going on in the Frank-Lloyd-Wright-designed living room. Which maybe was a little poetic, now that I think about it. We slipped through narrow hallways. We stuck our heads out of windowed corners. We listened to the water falling. I can see why people becomes pilgrims for the great architects.

After trekking back to town, Dave and I went out for an early dinner to a neighborhood place (sports on TV, flannel-shirted men at the bar) that also happened to have 1) amazing Christmas microbrews on draft, 2) sweet potato fries, and 3) an electronic darts game (which we were lousy at...but lousy with great enthusiasm!).

We came back. We each tried to work on our respective projects. We each failed to work. We watched Fantasia as the buzz from beer and darts wore off, and then we were done. By midnight, I was dreaming of dancing hippos, invading brooms, and Toots, the resident evil cat.

SUNDAY

Having been part of a previous Typewriter Girls show, I knew what to expect: funny skits (this time centering on a series of surreal and ill-advised schemes to raise the money needed to "save the libraries"); sideshow-style entertainment (this time involving a 83 oddly-shaped items, balanced on one chin, in the space of 10 minutes); fellow writers (once again, the wonderful Nancy Krygowski). And, of course, a round of Exquisite Corpse on an antique typewriter.

But there were also some big differences this time around. The setting was much for more formal (the auditorium of the main Carnegie library) with no whiskey on hand to warm us up. The audience was a bit scattered, folks drifting in mopey from a Steelers' game lost earlier in the day. I was nervous to be slated to perform at the front of the show--and after NAKA Entertainment, a hip-hop/dance group. What would their energy be like?

Um. How about devastatingly beautiful? The first few numbers were the bouncy step-clap routines I was expecting, but then they broke out an amazing solo set to "Hide and Seek," one of my favorite Imogen Heap songs (that has been shamelessly appropriated, as of late, in a sample for a Jason Derulo track). There's no posted video from Sunday, but I found this video of an earlier performance of the number:



If this is his version WITH A BUM KNEE, can you imagine Sunday's show? Tears came to my eyes. That was the upside.

The downside: then I had to follow this guy.

Probably not my best set ever. I changed my poem selection at the last minute--inspired by NAKA, I wanted to read some older, more personal poems--and one of the NAKA dancers had an asthma attack, which generated a heckuva distraction at the back of the hall. But between the silent auction (to which I contributed a book) and the door fees, they raised $900! A successful night in terms of what matters. & I was honored to be part of a line-up of otherwise local artists and to be granted, for just one evening, honorary residence in the Iron City.

It's such a great creative community. I've been to other places that exhibited a flagrant & quirky hometown pride: Austin comes to mind. But what I love about Pittsburgh is the fellowship across genres, the scrappy willingness to fight for better infrastructure, better funding, bigger dreams. Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.