A World Without Cronkite

Some might ask the obvious: Why is Justin Evans writing about the passage of Walter Cronkite? Well, it's a good question, and I think it's within my ability to answer within a few paragraphs, so please be patient.

It's true that I don't share the iconic memories of Walter Cronkite which many Americans do. My father wasn't even born when Cronkite reported on D-Day or interviewed Eisenhower. I wasn't alive when Cronkite announced the death of President Kennedy. I was not yet conceived when he stepped away from a reporter' objectivity and commented on on the state of affairs in Vietnam. As for the moon landing, I was only five days old when man landed on the moon and Cronkite was there, with the rest of the world, excited and seemingly eternally optimistic.

However, for the first eleven years of my life, it was from Walter Cronkite that I learned what the news was always meant to be. My grandfather watched the CBS News, and I really don't think there were many people who did not. To tell you the truth, I can't even tell you who the competing anchors were at that time. Walter Cronkite simply was the national news, and I can say that without the slightest implication of hyperbole. I don't just say "was" because it is quite obvious that an era has just passed with his death, but to highlight that since Cronkite's retirement there has a been a marked, steady decline in the quality of news reporting and journalism. Dan Rather, who replaced Cronkite as anchor certainly had big shoes to fill, but by way of lawsuits and temper tantrums he made it clear he was not up to the challenge of maintaining integrity. Rather simply squandered what talent he had on petty issues. It is unfortunate that Bob Shieffer came to the job too late to stem the tide of this decline.

The era of Past Cronkite (P.C.) has become too entrenched in glib pop commercialism and sensationalism. Americans, since 1981, have been woefully unequal to the task of fighting our more base instincts and wanton desire to seek the lowest common level among us. The proliferation of talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX is not to be blamed on cable making media so accessible and much less pluralism of American ideologies. It is here because we have lacked a single unified conscience to oppose their kind. And while I side with some of these voices who use integrity, it is clear too many have none, and they exist only because there is nobody like Walter Cronkite to shame them back into the dark corners of the radical fringe elements of our political spectrum.

I was watching when Walter Cronkite signed off from the CBS News for the last time, and I was always eager to see some glimpse of a return, or as he would say, continuation of his career. As we grow older, it is inevitable that we lose those icons we have created for ourselves from the people we find important, but some losses are greater than others. Some losses reach out further than others. Some we will carry with us further down the road.

One can only wonder what comes next.

News & Updates

Thank you to everyone who wised me a happy birthday, here and elsewhere. I appreciate it.

I have received in the mail several books, one of which is Seth Abramson's The Suburban Ecstacies. I will be reviewing it in a few days---possibly Monday.

I also received word that my poem, "Broken American Sonnets" will be published in the next edition of hoi polloi.

Good news all around.

Yup

40

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.


Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Figure it out

Summer Vacation Book Review: Shaindel Beers

A Brief History of Time
Shaindel Beers
66 pp. Salt Publishing
$14.95


Many of you know about my semi rural upbringing and my family history with farming and the rural life because I have taken the time to point out to you by way of commentary and poetry my family history. For a long time I have been steeped in the poetry of Dave Lee and William Kloefkorn in order to help maintain my voice and structure within the rural. As of Shaindel Beers' debut collection, A Brief History of Time, I can now add her name to the list. Her collection is a welcome addition for many reasons, including but not limited to her female voice. I think you will enjoy this collection. Stick around for a few minutes while I try and convince you to buy a copy of this book and read it for yourself.

From the start, Shaindel Beers makes it clear that a person's current position is not the sum of his or her being. Beers challenges the reader by providing a picture of herself as she really is. Both acknowledging her rural past and the complicated issues she must face as a woman raised in a rural setting, she provides the reader with a kaleidoscope of sensory images and narratives which set about explaining the complicated path she has walked. Take the early poem, "Would you know me" as an example:

if you had met me in my natural environs
wearing the uniform
of the hardworking rural poor---
straight-legged jeans, plaid flannel,
ponytail pulled though the back
of a John Deer cap.
a nondescript girl with hair as dun as after-harvest fields,
eyes the color of a Midwestern sky

Beers immediately confronts both the reader's perception of both past and what it is we expect from our poets. Can a poet, and here a woman poet really have such a past? What does that say about the poet? What does that say about our perceptions of poets?

Beginning near the center of her book, Beers starts to inter-weave the sestina throughout her book. As a form, the sestina is quite appropriate to rural poetry because the sestina tells a story so easily and rural poetry is dependent upon the narrative. To portray the rural is to tell stories, and each of the four sestinas in this book link the lyric to the narrative to the craft of poetry. I also see the sestina as being well suited for the feminine sensibilities Beers brings to her book. I don't mean to draw the obvious conclusion that this book has a feminine voice because Shaindel Beers happens to be a woman, because it's not as simple as that. Of course the stories here are written from the female perspective, but they are more. The poems here are the flip-side to the rural experience so often told from a male perspective.

For the most part I will avoid speaking to specific female issues dealt with in this book. I don't think it is for me to say which are best discussed and which are dealt with in a new or interesting way. However, I will speak to one of my favorite poems (aside from the sestinas you already know I adore), "The Calypso Diaries." I really enjoy any time when a standard story is turned on its ear, and this poem delivers a fantastic one-two punch to the Odysseus myths and to mythology in general. The entire poem creates for the reader an alternate to the motivations of Calypso and her letting loose Odysseus. It's a stark reminder of the double standard in the way we view sex in both the ancient and modern world.

As for the rural in this book, Beers offers quite a few wonderful images of the natural world and what it is to know the landscape personified. Strangely, the rural theme is so often of the most derided themes of contemporary writing. Thankfully, in poem after poem, Beers insists that the topography of her rural experience be given its due. When not directly dealing with landscape as in the poem "Return," Beers deftly works at creating a cohesive landscape in her other poems, just beneath the surface so we can all have a better lay of the land.

This is simply a wonderful book deserving of your patronage.

_______________________


Well, that's it for me for a while. I am going to be running silent for a while, and maybe even beyond my returning from vacation. As it is, I am having a difficult time writing my poems and I have not been feeling my usual rhythm while writing this blog. It's probably not permanent, but I do need a break.

Wow!

I have been really lax about posting here over the past few weeks. The deal is I haven't had much of substance to say. I know that hasn't stopped me before, but for some reason it has started to bother me more and more.

I would like to think that I would have been accumulating something important to say about writing or poetics, but not really. I have started to piece together a poem for my new manuscript called, well, I'd really rather not say. After such a productive burst of writing late last year and early this year, I have sort of fizzled out. My poetry writing started with a lackluster showing in April and it just seemed to continue to languish in the doldrums. Talking to much about the poem is how I will end up killing it.

After coming to terms with how I wanted my new manuscript organized, I have done little or no useful writing. I guess I have been getting rid of a lot of the garbage, which is a good thing, but I have not really been able to pull anything together by way of an actual poem.

I am going to be off the grid for a few days later this week while we (my family and I) go opal mining. After I get back, I am going to be sending out my first book manuscript out for the very last time. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a lot of emotion tied up in that manuscript, but I can't be tied to it forever and I can't let it weigh me down. It's simply time to move on to other things.

So I may be back before I leave, and it may be aweek before you hear from me via this blog. All the best until then. When I return, I will be writing reviews.

Things to look forward to

1. I am going to be writing reviews of Shaindel Beers' collection, A Brief History of Time, and one of Seth Abramson's The Suburban Ecstasies. I have been reading the first collection now for just over a day, but I am already liking it very much. The poems provide a very strong feminine description of the rural life I knew growing up, and have been enlightening as well as powerful in their approach. As for Seth's collection, I am going to be ordering it very soon. I have known Seth for several years (in the on-line 'I know you' sort of way), and I love his poetry. The man can write.

2. Sometime after the 4th of July weekend, I will be taking a break to once again take my family into the remote desolation that is Northwestern Nevada to go opal mining. It will be our second trip, and with no expectation of finding some incredible specimens, I know we will be having a lot of fun camping. After, it is off to Utah as we visit the family. We will also be going to a few lakes and day-trips for part of the summer season.

3. Somewhere in all of that, I will be reading submissions to Hobble Creek Review. If you are so inclined, please submit some of your poetry.

right now, I can't offer you any more, so please don't ask. Well, go ahead and ask. I love it when people ask me for favors. I like being of service to others, but don't tell too many people.

!

!

The Countdown begins: 2 Weeks to go

So this is me before I got fat. Or, at least before I got REALLY fat. The world is a much different place than it was all those years ago, but somehow I always picture myself this young. I certainly don't feel old. People ask me about turning 40 and I tell them it's no big deal. Not because I am mature about entering into the crowning decade of adulthood, but rather because I don't feel it. I have accepted that I am a fat man. I am at peace about my place in the world (I will never be rich or famous), and my hair will some day be a distant memory. However, I'm not ready to accept that I am old. So all you people out there, waiting for me to have some kind of breakdown at the prospect of turning 40, you've got a longer wait ahead of you than you thought. In the words of Bill Cosby, "Old is always 15 years away."

A Few Things

We just returned from Elko where we closed on a re-finance which knocked more than 2 points off our mortgage. Cool Beans!

* * *

Even during summer school I can't escape the brattiness of some students. This time a student accused me of using inappropriate language while she was in the midst of an attitude fit. There certainly are things I wish I could pull from the realm of teaching at the college level. Being able to simply ignore rude students and their parents is at the top of my list.

* * *

I am going to have a few of my photos displayed in a coffee house in my home town. I'm pretty stoked about that. While in Elko, I bought some really nice frames.

* * *

I am heading into the home stretch on hearing back from the Nevada Arts Council, prepping my first manuscript for it's last and never-again submission in August, and waiting on an anthology submission I made a little while ago. I am also about to push through to the 5th incarnation of my latest manuscript. After that, the only thing it will need are the half-dozen poems it needs to be what I want it to be, and those cannot be forced.

* * *

I am now in preparation mode for once again heading to the opal fields of Northwestern Nevada. It's more about camping than finding opals, but hey, if I happen to find something worth a few hundred dollars, that would be okay, too.

Putting out a Call to all you 'poet types'

So I am writing this 'miraculous birth' poem, and I have a few lines. Unfortunately, I am trying to contextualize it within a setting which might actually be suggestive of Greek mythology, and I also need to turn what I write into the form I am using for my latest manuscript. I am getting to the point where I am eager to get back into writing, but I want to see what's out there for me to consider as I move forward.

My request is plain and simple:

Please forward me the names of poets and the title of poems which you feel have some connection to a miraculous birth. I don't care if they are connected to mythology or not. I prefer to not deal with poems surrounding the Christian myths, as I am already well versed in the Old and New Testament. I simply want to have new places to go as I start this task in earnest. You can comment here or e-mail me (my address is on my profile) with your suggestions.

Thank you for your help.

King for a Day

For years I have been fantasising what I would do with the lottery money I have yet to win or even enter to win. All of the home-owner fantasies, travel, endeavors, and luxuries swirl around and I go off the deep end. Oh, the things I would do with unlimited (or relatively unlimited) resources. Start a real poetry press, fund half a dozen others, and actually pay poets I published. What would that be like?

It occurs to me, however, I may be looking at all of this from the wrong perspective. If I were king for a day really isn't the best use of my imagination. I should be asking if I were poet for a day. What if I was a poet for a day? Now go with me on this for a little while. I already know I am a poet, and that there isn't a set of activities one does to become a poet, I'm just trying to make a point. That point is I should not be concerned with being king for a day when I have the opportunity to be something so much better.

Over at Kate Evans' blog, she posted an interview with Shaindel Beers about her first book, A Brief History of Time. In the interview, Beers states, "I really wanted to write an ambitious first book." On the surface, this sounds pretty standard. I don't think any poet looks around and says "I want to do my best to write a mediocre book of poems." What struck me as truly revealing about this quote is that Beers actually acknowledges it to herself and in public. There was no pie in the sky artistic statement trying to enumerate all of the nuances of a subtle progression of ideas within her manuscript. No. this part of the discussion was about her goal of excellence. So many times poets (myself included) get lost in the message of the poetry we write we forget that it's the poem which needs to take center stage.

Poet for a day.

Stephen King (no pun intended with the title of this post) talked about Harper Lee and To Kill A Mockingbird. He said that if you are going to write a book as amazing as that, it is forgivable to not write another, but if you could write that well, why wouldn't you? I am not going to speak of Harper Lee's dissatisfaction with her other writing projects, but I will talk about the fact she brought her "A" game. That much is obvious, but there is a little more to be said. She wrote the hell out of that book, and she knows it. Unfortunately, so many poets are consumed with the image of being a poet. I am one of them. my posturing as a young writer cost me valuable years of learning and honing my craft. Work I find more difficult now than it would have been 15 years ago.

This is why I say I need to re-think my wishful fantasies. Imagine all of the real work I could accomplish without the split focus. Gregg Rappleye said as much here, but probably better than I ever could. I should be focused on extending my day as a poet, acting on the behaviors of being a poet for more than those moments when I am reading poetry, reading about poetry, or writing it.

Poet for a day.

And I dare say there are some poets out there who need to let go of their egos in favor of simply being poets. I say this because at the end of the day, being a poet and being a carpenter hit the same mark in a life worth living. Neither are exclusive to each other and neither are better than the other, but some of our best poets cannot seem to accept that while their work is good, it means nothing without being human.

Poet for a day.

With my first book about to go out to one more editor in a month, and my second manuscript starting to take on a good shape, I am going to again begin to look towards something new to create by way of poetry. I may not yet be able to carve out an entire day, but i am going to make a go of it over the next few weeks of summer and work on sustaining that even as I have to pay the bills with my day-job.


___________________

Shameless plug:

Today is my youngest son's 4th birthday. Happy birthday, Ryan.

I was thinking

I am making a little headway into my 'miraculous birth' poem for my latest manuscript. I am keeping a little of the old by rooting it in actual, real, and factual family history. I have always worked best, I think, when mythologizing my real family history. My "shotgun" poem, as it has come to be known in several circles works that way, as do many of the poems in my first manuscript. Of course the trick will be to translate the poem into the voice of my second book. I only have four or five lines down, but I am certain things will work out for the best so long as I don't force anything.

I was driving east along I-80 when the following line hit me:

A vast menagerie of cloud animals stampedes over the Ochre Mountains

I have no idea where I will ever use it, or even some version of it, but I was lucky enough to write it down while my wife steadied the steering wheel. I am telling you this because these six lines (that last one and those I just mentioned above) are the only six lines of poetry i have written successfully for over a month. Well, it was important to me.

I told you that to tell you this:

I hate manual labor. I mean I loath it in almost every sense. Until I have finished building/painting/hanging/creating something. Then I am happy for about five minutes before getting back on the hate-bus. I just finished helping my wife re-tile our bathroom floor. On day one, we had no tile cutter---just a score knife and some tile pinches. My had can still feel the ache. To finish the bathroom (we were a few tiles short) we bought a tile cutter because we are going to go through this at least two more times when it comes to the kitchen and the entryway. Big difference. Huge. If only all manual labor had the differential between day one and just a few hours ago. If it were true I might have gone into the family business of cement work rather than teaching. Then again, I really hate manual labor.

Poetry. . .Boy, I don't know

Over the past several years of writing this blog, I have been struggling with the kind of poet, I want to be, or rather, what public persona I want. For the most part I have only been able to arrive at what kind of persona I don't want to project. I have gone back and forth over the past several months in particular because I have come close to a definitive statement, I lose sight of my original thesis.

Just having received three new titles in the mail I think I can again come close to articulating what it is I know I am not, in this world of poetry.

I am not one of those poets who submerge themselves completely beneath the English language. Maybe that's my problem. I admire those poets. Please don't take this as criticism. I would sometimes like to hold my breath and go under in order to write a poem or two, or an entire book. Unfortunately (an perhaps to my regret) I always find it aesthetically pleasing to float on the surface of the language, or stay close enough to shore to be able to stand and walk back to shore.

There. I feel much better now. I feel better than James Brown. How do you feel?

I can finally say this as closely as I ever have that my choices often keep me out of places I'd like to appear. So many journals out there demand more than I am willing to give. I have spoken of my lack of irony in my first manuscript---how I am ready to slap the next editor who tels me it lacks irony, but this is a much broader issue than my first manuscript. Most of my writing stays close to shore. Most of what I write is straight forward, direct in a way which makes reading an uncertain thing. Not uncertain when the reader has to follow other poets beneath the surface of language, but uncertain in the sense of not seeing the craft of a poem.

And I will be the first to admit I am not a master of crafting a poem. I write, employ assonance, alliteration, metaphor and simile, but I rarely set forth trying to write in a certain meter or set structure. I have no idea what my poems will look like, and I don't try to compensate by sliding beneath the waters to mine for dark language. I like my poems to be simple and direct. I like to say what I mean to say the first time around.

Unfortunately, that's not what sells. Some might be tempted to cite academia or the MFA sub-cult, and how not being a part of it excuses me from the burden of a deeper language, but not me. I write the way I do because that's how I see the poem. I need the conceit. I need the idea to dictate to me how something should be written. Call it laziness if you like, but I have let many poems sink past my reach because I refuse to dive deeper to create a language construct for it. Some things are out of my reach which will not be out of my reach in 10 years. I'm okay with that.

This Writing Life # 3

Coming back into the blogging fold after an absence of even a few days makes me feel as if I have entered the strange and curious life of Benjamin Button. It's like this strange mirror of existence. I am trying to catch up on blog posts and trying to find my balance, but on the other hand I have to see the world through the skewed myopia of Brad Pitt.

While sequestered away in professional development seminars designed to get me to think outside of the box and admit particular governing dynamics dealing with education, I tried to keep one foot in this writing life. I would pull out my latest book manuscript and re-read everything, trying to sound all the words and commas. Sitting in the back of a 3,000 person conference can have its advantages. Still, I felt as if I was missing something essential.

To wile away the hours, I envisioned writing a faux academic paper, entitled Drinking the Kool-Aid: subcultures in education conferences. I have to admit that many of the things I saw at this conference were the same things I have seen at others. The presenters even went so far as to invite everyone up to dance The Electric Slide right before the last keynote speaker. I may still write that paper---complete with fake citations and bogus data, of course.

Anything to keep me writing.

Seriously, I am putting some final tweaks on my first manuscript, waiting to submit it to another editor.

Well, I am going to go. I am going to go try and write something new.

Back Home

I am back after quite a bit of driving. Las Vegas was a nice little rest for my wife, having no children to worry about for three days. While I was hog-tied to professional development seminars, she took to the Strip, visited the Madam T wax museum, and spent the best part of her vacation (her words) at the Liberace Museum closely examining the bead work for quite a few of his costumes. Our room was on the 14th floor of Caesar's and had a wonderful shower with endless hot water and two shower heads.

Dinners out were quite wonderful and so was all of the window shopping. I did manage to buy my wife a Murano glass paper weight, though if I had the $7,000, I would have bought the original Erte painting I found in one of the shops. There was one store which was liquidating all of its crystal at 75% off, but when a simple (and quite small) candy dish was running $585, there was no way I would have been able to buy a set of anything. If anyone has a spare 10-20K laying around, send it my way so I can buy the painting and a crystal service set for my wife. You will be mentioned in my first book's acknowledgements.

My wife and I got stomped like a narc at a biker rally when it came to gambling. Nothing we played at Caesar's worked out. And I mean nothing. My wife won a grand total of $47 on a slot at The Mirage, which almost covered our buffet bill for the evening. I'm not saying we lost a lot of money, but my first son's dream of a college education will have to be put on hold. I am comforted only by the overwhelming evidence that he wasn't going to do much with his degree in pre-law, anyway.

___________________________

I came home to about 40 e-mails, several of which were rejections. It was inevitable after such a string of frankly stunning successes for my poetry. My interview is up at Nic's Very Like a Whale if you haven't already looked at it. It was quite an honor to be asked to answer her questions. The series has been very enlightening to me so far and I am looking forward to every one of her choices, which makes me all the more humbled that I was included.

Las Vegas Bound

In less than 24 hours I will be taking my wife to Las Vegas with me for a mini-vacation. The school thinks I am going for some silly little conference on Professional Learning Communities or some BS like that, but I am going for the free room for three nights at Caesar's Palace and the chance to go on a road trip with my wife.


In the hopper:

I've got a lament type of poem percolating with the intent of being put into my new manuscript. It's one of six or seven which need to be added to the book for me to look at the project as being ready to take to the next level. I have submitted my first book of poems to a new press, and I will be sending it off again to the editor who asked me to send it again within a month. I am also gearing up to hear back from the Nevada Arts Council on what I think is my strongest application ever. I have also had four poems accepted for publication by The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. That, along with my other acceptances and publication makes 2009 my most successful year in quite some time.

New Poem Up

My poem, "Lost In Wikiburbia," is up at MFA/MFYou if you care to go have a look.

In other news, I am supposed to be featured in one of the local papers, so I guess that's a good thing. The editor will be talking about my most recent chapbook, Working in the Bird House, and printing one or two poems from it.

We are still waiting on our new computer, which reminds me that I need to go see where it is right now.

Talk to you all later.

A quick note

Late last week, our computer monitor went out, so we decided to order a new computer for the family. That computer will arrive in a few days. After that, we are going to be transferring all of our old computer stuff to our new computer. After that, I will be in Las Vegas for another week at a teacher conference. All of which means I will be only around the blogosphere on a limited basis until then.

I will be checking e-mail and the like while helping to run the summer school program, so that will be the best way to reach me or ask me something---not that many people have the sudden urge to talk to me about too many things.