Blog Fears and Facebook

I've been a lousy blogger for months now. I've been hesitant to write anything at all. Even a little afraid.

I think my fear began months ago when my friend, K., said a blog is too exposing. I was way too exposed on my blog. People can know things about me. Isn't that a little scary?

Verdad.

Maybe I don't want them to know so much.

I suddenly felt as if there were naked pics of me . I suddenly felt as if there were something I should hide.

K. said Facebook was better. Much less personal. And so much more popular.

Facebook was a better place to be.

So I joined Facebook. And I lost interest in both the blog and Facebook.

The fact is, I don't "get" Facebook.

Almost overnight I had so many friends I'd never met.

(The word, friend, must have been redefined while I was blogging.)

When I check in on Facebook, I see all kinds of posts from so many new friends. I've never had so many friends in my life!

And some are friends I actually know! It's so exciting when I see a post from someone whose name I recognize.

What confuses me, though, are all the games. Or quizes. Or what are they? And who has time?

Someone posts that they have taken a quiz that reveals they have the soul of Bob Dylan and the Mona Lisa, all wrapped into one. Someone else posts he is King Arthur. Someone else posts they had grits for breakfast. Someone else says it's windy. Did anyone else notice the wind?

On special days an electronic friend sends me an electronic plant. I am invited to send my electronic friend an electronic plant back.

How romantic!

I am thinking this must be how you have unexposed friendships.

And roses too.

I love Vallejo

Have You Anything to Say In Your Defense?

by César Vallejo

Well, on the day I was born,
God was sick.
They all know that I'm alive,
that I'm vicious; and they don't know
the December that follows from that January.
Well, on the day I was born,
God was sick.

There is an empty place
in my metaphysical shape
that no one can reach:
a cloister of silence
that spoke with the fire of its voice muffled.

On the day I was born,
God was sick.

Brother, listen to me, Listen . . .
Oh, all right. Don't worry, I won't leave
without taking my Decembers along,
without leaving my Januaries behind.
Well, on the day I was born,
God was sick.

They all know that I'm alive,
that I chew my food . . . and they don't know
why harsh winds whistle in my poems,
the narrow uneasiness of a coffin,
winds untangled from the Sphinx
who holds the desert for routine questioning.

Yes, they all know . . . Well, they don't know
that the light gets skinny
and the darkness gets bloated . . .
and they don't know that the Mystery joins things together . . .
that he is the hunchback
musical and sad who stands a little way off and foretells
the dazzling progression from the limits to the Limits.

On the day I was born,
God was sick,
gravely.

Kindled!!!

www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Houdini-American-Continuum-ebook/dp/B002SQKMES/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1255706811&sr=1-1

What a Week

Strange, sad, and good things happening:


Rick Bursky's wonderful book was accepted for publication. Rick and Claire Bateman, two of my favorite poets, will have books next year . . . I can't wait.

Barrack Obama won the Peace Prize. I keep thinking how Hillary Clinton and Anne Marie Slaughter won it, too.

A professor from the Ohio State Ag School asked me what I would do if I could do one thing to change the ag policy in the state. I said I'd request more public funding for agricultural research so that the universities were not depending on corporations for funding. Two days later Tom Vilsack asked for more public funding for universities for agricultural research. Verdad!

Herb Thomas asked me if I'd be interested in participating in the Spoken Word event in January in Cleveland.

NASA bombed the moon in order to find out if there's water.

We saw Traficant at dinner on Friday night. He came over to our table and greeted our friends. Rumor has it he might run for election against Wilson.

The great poet, Morton Marcus, is dying. His new book is forthcoming from White Pine Press, and from what I've seen of it, it might well be his best.

How to Poop

I don't know, but this made my day today . . . an article in the Daily Intel on Alicia Silverstone.

Alicia Silverstone Will Teach You How to Poop

Alicia Silverstone has been a vegan for ten years, and with her new book, The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight and Saving the Planet, she hopes to convert the rest of us. "The truth is, there is a list of foods that will make you fat and make you sick and hurt you and make you older and tired and slowly deteriorate," she told us at last night's launch party at Candle Cafe. Like milk, for instance. "Remember, dairy was designed to make little baby calves turn into 400-pound cows, so that's what it does to you," she told us.

I'd like to point out that cows weigh a lot more than 400 lbs. And it's the corn, I think, not the milk that makes an animal fat.

Yep, same goes for people I'd guess. Vegan or otherwise.

Let's Not Be Girlie-Men!

Sometimes when I am reading the news, I think about the Republican platform, if there is such a thing. And I think there is. I think the simplest way to put it:

Let's not be girlie-men.

i am referring to Arnold Shwarzenegger's speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004.

An excerpt:

Now there's another way you can tell you're Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people, and faith in the U.S. economy. And to those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: "Don't be economic girlie men!'

So, Arnie, how's the economy out there in the great state of California?

My Fear of Brain Jello

I'm always amazed by the ability of people to fear -- and not to fear. The logic of fear in general.

President Reagan had that slogan, "There is a bear in the woods," to inspire fear of the Soviets. Wouldn't you rather know there isn't a bear in the woods? I think that was the implication of the ad. Or I guess we were supposed to become stronger than the bear and pour money into the defense industry.

And of course Dick Cheney and Brother Bush were all about fear. And they were elected because, I assume, we felt safer with Big Brother in office.

At the same time people are not afraid of various entities in their food. They tend to think, I assume, in terms of statistics, that they will be fine. And they are probably right. I guess.

Mad cow is a case in point. Some scientists says it's not a big risk. Others see it as a sleeping epidemic, something that will get inside a person and make his brain turn to jello in say--15 years. Sometimes sooner. Sometimes later. Who knows when your brain will turn into brain soup? Or jello, depending how long it lasts.

And so the US meat industry doesn't worry much about checking for Mad Cow Disease.

But the Europeans are more concerned. And so is McDonald's.

As long ago as 2001, McDonald's started to enforce stricter standards than the average grocery store. (And it wouldn't be hard because the standards are really weak. In fact the USDA has fought the organic beef co., Creekstone, that has wanted to test ALL its cows for Mad Cow.)

Me? Let's just say I'm a lot more afraid of what's on my plate than what's in my woods. I know I'm in the minority, but I am so grossed out by BSE. Brain jello.

Below are excerpts from two old articles on the topic.

Monday, March 27, 2006 LA Times
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, an organic meatpacking company based in Arkansas City, Kansas, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for what the company claims is threats by the USDA that it would face prosecution if it proceeds with plans to test nearly 100% of its beef for Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease or BSE.
The USDA position is that allowing any meatpacking company to test every cow would undermine the agency's official position, . . .. .
The USDA currently tests about 1% of cattle slaughtered in the U.S. The USDA's objection is believed to be the result of pressure from larger meatpacking operations.


March, 2001
WASHINGTON -- McDonald's Corp. is starting on its own to enforce widely disregarded federal regulations aimed at keeping the nation's beef supply free of mad cow disease.
The fast-food giant has given packers until April 1 to document that the cattle they buy have been fed in accordance with the federal rules.

The Food and Drug Administration reported recently that hundreds of feed makers had failed to comply with its feed regulations, which are designed to keep the brain-wasting disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, from spreading if it ever reaches this country.

Europe's cattle industry suffered severe losses after consumers began shunning beef because of fears that humans can contract a similar brain disease from eating meat infected with BSE.

A beef about beef

There was a great article in the New York Times today on the beef industry. I think I should take it with me to poetry readings whenever I'm going to read my farm poems because I so often get asked if I would eat a burger today. When I say, Nope. I don't trust the meat sold in the grocery stores in this country, people tend to think I am a bit nuts. Which I am, of course, but if you read the article, well, maybe you'll be nuts too.

The article talked in particular about the risk of E. coli contamination and our lax or total lack of adequate testing and inspections . . .

Here are two excerpts . . .

"Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen."

"Yet . . . the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria."

Add to this the fact that we test only 1% of all food imports,
that our food industry is in bed with our politicians
and as a result food is increasingly deregulated . . .

Yeah, okay, so it's not just beef I worry about. Sigh. But given a choice between beef and some nice GMO vegies . . . Hmm.

92

Fall Readings

I will be reading . . .

Oct. 7

at 7:00
1925 Coventry Rd
Cleveland Hts., Ohio



Oct. 19
New School's Poetry Forum
on 6:30 PM
Room 510 of 66 West 12 Street, NYC 10011

Oct. 31
I will be lecturing on book contests
and the literary lottery
at YSU at 3:00
Details TBA

Nov. 11
I will be reading with Kazim Ali
at Mac's Backs ~ Books on Coventry
at 7:00
1820 Coventry Rd.
Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118
216-321-2665

Nov. 19
Providence College
at 7:30
Details TBA

Dec. 6
I will be reading
at the CakeShop
on the Lower East Side at 5 pm
Details TBA

Dec. 16
7 PM
at the Bela Dubby Art Gallery & Beer Cafe
13332 Madison Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio

Jan. 16
The Wordsmith Book Shoppe
near Erie, PA
Details TBA

Middlesex

I just finished the book, Middlesex. I think it's the best book I've read since I don't know when. I feel so sad to be finished. Maybe I'll start over again . . .

The Secret Red Book

I read in the Times yesterday that they are finally releasing Jung's Red Book. The Red Book was a carefully guarded book that his family kept in a safe, promising never to release it . . .

I love the idea of this secret book. Red, no less. Something not meant for anyone else to see.

Now I am sure it will be nothing but an embarrassment. A major disappointment.

I wonder why they didn't just destroy it.

from Delancey Place . . . Writers

In today's excerpt - famous writers and their odd ways of writing:

"Dame Edith Sitwell used to lie in an open coffin for a while before she began her day's writing. When I mentioned this macabre bit of gossip to a poet friend, he said acidly, 'If only someone had thought to shut it.' ...

"Sitwell's coffin trick may sound like a prank, unless you look at how other writers have gone about courting their muses. ... For example, the poet Schiller used to keep rotten apples under the lid of his desk and inhale their pungent bouquet when he needed to find the right word. Then he would close the drawer, but the fragrance remained in his head. ...

"Amy Lowell, like George Sand, liked to smoke cigars while writing, and went so far in 1915 as to buy 10,000 of her favorite Manila stogies to make sure she could keep her creative fires kindled. ... Balzac drank more than 50 cups of coffee a day, and actually died from caffeine poisoning, although colossal amounts of caffeine don't seem to have bothered W. H. Auden or Dr. Johnson, who was reported to have drunk 25 cups of tea at one sitting. Victor Hugo, Benjamin Franklin and many others felt that they did their best work if they wrote while they were nude. ...

"Colette used to begin her day's writing by first picking fleas from her cat, and it's not hard to imagine how the methodical stroking and probing into fur might have focused such a voluptuary's mind. After all, this was a woman who could never travel light, but insisted on taking a hamper of such essentials as chocolate, cheese, meats, flowers and a baguette whenever she made even brief sorties. ...

"Alfred de Musset, George Sand's lover, confided that it piqued him when she went directly from lovemaking to her writing desk, as she often did. But surely that was not so direct as Voltaire's actually using his lover's naked back as a writing desk. Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain and Truman Capote all used to lie down when they wrote, with Capote going so far as to declare himself 'a completely horizontal writer.' ...

"Benjamin Franklin, Edmond Rostand and others wrote while soaking in a bathtub. In fact, Franklin brought the first bathtub to the United States in the 1780's, and he loved a good, long, thoughtful submersion. In water and ideas, I mean. ...

"The Romantics, of course, were fond of opium, and Coleridge freely admitted to indulging in two grains of it before working. The list of writers triggered to inspirational highs by alcohol would occupy a small, damp book. T. S. Eliot's tonic was viral - he preferred writing when he had a head cold. The rustling of his head, as if full of petticoats, shattered the usual logical links between things and allowed his mind to roam."

Health Care???

I've been so out of it lately. I didn't read the news in Maine, and now I keep thinking I'll catch up and understand what's happening. But I'm not sure anymore. The health care debate, for example. People actually like our system as it is? Are they nuts? An article in the New Yorker said that when Obama was running, most Americans said the system was terrible. But now that the govt. is thinking of changing it, most say it's fine.

So it's fear of change, the article claims. Wow. Hasn't it changed a lot already?

I remember in college when I broke my arm. It was $167. An ER visit. A cast . . .

As a kid, my sister almost chopped her finger off. The doctor came to our house and sewed it back on in our playroom. No ER trip. No wait or delayed bills coming months later . . .

Then I think how I had so many eye appointments and operations as a child. My mom paid the doctor every year with a Christmas ham. And I wrote the doctor letters, and he wrote me back! I called him up when I could finally hit the ball in softball and tennis. He was very excited. I felt as if we were working together for a common goal. He was like a coach. He visited our home and showed me all the pictures of my progress, from childhood to my teens . . .

Of course, that was unusual, but the doctors did seem more caring.

Back then the doctors were just as nice as vets who came to the farm and knew the animals and enlisted our help with the treatments.

Even now the vet calls me to ask how my pups are doing when they've had a sore ear or a bad tummy.

Cold Music

I love this early fall weather! But it isn't so great for playing music in the park! Yesterday Brady's Leap performed in the wind and cold. Brrrr! But it was fun all the same.

So why should I move?

UCS in Maine

One of the highlight of our time in Maine this summer was having Kevin Knobloch from the Union of Concerned Scientists visit and give a talk on climate change at the College of the Atlantic. Here he's talking to my sister from the top of Schoodic Mountain.

Summer in Maine

It's nonstop rain up here, but I love it anyhow. Something about the open spaces, the fog, the meadows, the salty sea smells, the scruffy mountains, the ice cold water . . . . Even the rain. Maine-it's one place on earth I really love.

Grand Master

It's been a blog-less summer so far. I can't quite keep up with things these days, I guess. And speaking of keeping up, I ran a race with my daughter on July 4, and I didn't stick around for the results. I'm not exactly the speedster on the block anymore, and I ran a pretty flat 7 minute pace. But today my daughter came home with a plaque for me . . . "Hey, Mom! You won the Grand Master prize!" Okay, there were 800 plus people in the race, but I doubt there were any women in my age group. Sigh.

So yeah. Now I get to be Grand Master.

I love these lines . . .

from one of my favorite poems.


The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

July 4 in Poland, Ohio

You never know when July 4th will happen here. Except you can be sure that it won't take place on July 4th. This year it happened on June 26th -- and came with the added pleasure of a Civil War re-enactment. I'm not exactly sure why this brigade of middle aged men and women moved into town, pretending to be Civil War folks. But they camped out in white tents on the town square for two nights, talked on their cell phones a lot, drank Cokes, and planted a line of porta-potties next to their tents. They marched up and down the streets at various times during their stay, sweating profusely and waving at the cars driving by. I made the mistake of asking one of the Civil Warriors what July 4 had to do with the Civil War. He just blinked a few times, took a bite of a hotdog, and said people like to learn about history.

The Price of Poetry

I started 3 new poems this week, and I feel completely wiped out by them. I find it so strange that writing a silly poem or two takes so much out of me. I can run ten miles with greater ease and less physical pain than composing half a poem. That said, I still think the hardest job is farming. So many of my writer friends talk of my childhood on a farm as somehow merely bucolic. They seem to picture the act of farming as watching the alfalfa grow. What I remember was the feeling that the work would never be done. And unlike a poem, you can't just abandon the farm . . . And there was not much profit involved.

Maybe as a result, I tend to look up the news about the American dairy farmer. The independent small farmer, not the CAFOs. The news is never good. (It might be worse than trying to make a living as a poet.) The more we rely on CAFOs of course, the greater the environmental damage. I can't imagine why anyone would want to operate a factory farm. Ah well. Here's the latest:

"According to the USDA, the average cost of production for milk is $24.08 per hundredweight (cwt or 100 pounds), while the price dairy farmers were paid for their milk in April sunk to $10.78 cwt.

This means that dairy farmers are earning less than half of what it costs to produce their milk. Imagine having your salary cut in half and still trying to cover the same monthly bills. Even worse, feed and fuel prices are starting to go up in the past few months. For farmers, most of whom work too long of hours and are paid too little money, this is the perfect formula for a final liquidation of one of the last remaining independent segments of ag production. For years, small and medium-sized farms have relied on their dairy cows to stay relatively free from domination by factory farms and corporate agribusiness. But no longer. " (from Grist)

Of course, there aren't any reports on the average production costs for poets and writers. How much per weight in pages. And whether it costs more to produce than to write. Evidently if we could eat or drink poetry, it probably wouldn't help much--unless we could churn them out . . . and not worry about the quality. Who would know the difference? we might reason. One poem is as good as another. The more, the faster, the better. Sometimes when I have a glass of milk these days, I have to remind myself that this is milk I'm drinking. Not some cold white drink with a flavor of liquid white noise. No, this milk from a carton is nothing like the milk I drank as a child, the fresh milk with a taste of sunlight and grass and TLC.