childhood of jesus

Enjoyed. Not a whole lot to say about it. 

writing poetry

Been writing bad poetry recently. Started as a way to pass the time in KBL -- figured writing a sonnet would be more fun and more fulfilling than playing Angry Birds and I was sick of whatever book I was reading. Not very good but I've been enjoying it. Today I talked with my friend Andrew about univocal writing and I figured I'd give that a shot, too. And I talked to Jack on the phone tonight, and he said something that touched me in a pretty serious way (paraphrasing): "I didn't realize you were so creative, I've really been enjoying reading the stuff you send."

I do not think of myself as a creative person, or more precisely as a person who has much native talent in the arts. But when I think about the compliments I can remember actually touching me over the past few years, most are related to things I've done, almost without thinking about them, that are creative. My friend Johanna telling me a couple of years ago, after I finished telling a story, that I'm a good storyteller, and Gabby telling me that I tell better stories than pretty much anyone else he knows. Andrew this morning saying that he really liked my univocal poem. And Jack tonight. I like writing, and I'm good at technical and persuasive writing and outstanding at editing other people's writing -- those skills are my stock in trade and I take some pride in them.

But I don't know what to do with people telling me I'm creative or good at a creative thing, I don't think I believe them. Anyway, I'm going to write more poetry. It's fun, even if I'm bad at it, and even if I never stick with any one poem long enough to make it passable.

In chronological order in which they were written, here are a few sonnets and a poem with univocal stanzas. They were each written in about 30-45 minutes. I'm not happy with any of them except maybe the mouse one. 

Topkapi
So many objets d'art, and clothing of

The sultans. Jewel encrusted everything,

Gigantic thrones of wood inlaid with love,

The spoils of war and gifts from Russia's kings.

Then crazy relics: David's sword and the

Saucepan of Abraham and Moses's staff,

Prophetic teeth and swords and bows, and a

Gold box, a letter written, stop, don't laugh,

By Abraham himself to a neighb'ring tribe.

With serious presentation, tot'lly free

Of irony. These strange, fake things alive

With power, somehow full of majesty.

Outside the ancient hall the white hot sun

Beats down, indifferent, scorching everyone.

To a mouse, with apologies to Robert Burns
Th'electric wiring in my house is not

All up to code. I fear one day a wee

Li'l mouse will chew right through a tangled knot

Of wires. A fire he'd start and like a tree

The house would catch and go all up in smoke.

The flames would lick the bricks all up and down.

I'd wake in bed, alarmed, and tumbling, choke

My way out to the street. And with a frown

I'd call the fire trucks to come and spray

Their dousing streams in through the broken glass

In hopes of saving anything. Next day,

The embers cool, I'd find that mouse, his ass

Charred to a crisp, and say, "it's okay mouse,

You lost your life. Me, I just lost the house."

Interior Sindh, with apologies to myself for writing that last line
In dark of night, a rumbling through my dream

And, groggy, I awake to shatt'ring glass.

I stumble to the bedroom door and scream

For children, wife, and mother to run fast

Outside. The ground jumps up beneath our feet

And water seeps up through the once-dry dirt.

"Impossible," I think, with all this heat

For liquid now to soak my son's nightshirt.

We tumble out into the open field 

And watch the earth crack open. Like a maw

It gulps a wall of our adobe home.

at nightmare, god, is this? I ask in awe.

At least we're all alive and bod'ly whole.

A long night waits, a dark night of the soul.

Sense of taste
Fat and jam as art,
Grant Achatz talks
a fatty past and 
alarm at a call
that appalls all: 
"C" racks la lang.

He feels decked,
wrecked even.
Yet, ever the chef,
he feeds the 
well-met herd.

Within his tiring
mind, his instincts,
lit, firing, driving,
lift his kitch.

Plods on, cold,
noon convoys no 
color to old cook.

Surg'ns cut up tung.

Stunn'd tusks chump, yum!

the girl on the train

Very fun, very engrossing, read in one sitting. Good unreliable narrators. Like a 10%-as-sophisticated My Name is Red. 

on immunity

Beautifully written meditations on motherhood, vaccination, and medical care in our culture. Kind of discursive in structure, the chapters are short and loop back on each other in an unusual way. Ultimately a little unsatisfying, although I can't really tell why. Maybe it's because I want her to be a little more strident, but I think part of her point is that stridency is misplaced a lot of the time. Good lesson for me to remember. Anti-vaxxers may be wrong, and they may be harming our kids, but their fears are grounded in wider cultural understandings and tropes that are old and understandable to some degree, and that we're all part of in some way or other.

For example, dismissing mistrust of medicine out of hand ignores the very real history that medical doctors often invented elaborate "cures" for things that did not work or were actively harmful, but which gave the illusion of the doctor as a skilled practitioner who could bill for his practice, in contrast to women who, in their traditional healer role, often just advocated patience. Biss's dad is a physician, and he has a funny idea for a two-line medical textbook, which I'll paraphrase here: "Most problems will get better if you leave them alone. Problems that are so serious as to require intervention will probably kill the patient anyway, no matter what you do."

Biss's compassion and frank uncertainty are humbling.