Poetry Wednesday: a Spot of Denise Duhamel

This is a visual poem by the poet Denise Duhamel. Denise is married to the poet Nick Carbo (whose cool poetry blog is here).

I met Denise at the Dodge Poetry Festival in 1998 and we developed a correspondence and what I would like to say is a distant friendship, although some may classify it more as an acquaintanceship.

A line from an e-mail I sent Denise after 9/11 appeared in her long poem "Love Which took Its Symmetry for Granted," in her last book Two and Two. She talks about the poem and her work in this interview here. I even get a shout-out in the acknowledgments(!).

I strongly recommend Denise's work to people looking for interesting poets. The above piece came in an e-mail to which I subscribe, and I have noticed from her husband Nick's blog that they both have been doing a lot of visual poetry recently. I still have in my office I poem I wrote in Sun Valley, California.
Entitled "August Ramblings on a Grease-stained Plate," it is, as the title would suggest, a poem written on a paper plate, composed clockwise, beginning on the outer edge and moving toward the center. Coincidentally, it was written fifteen years ago yesterday (August 14, 1992). Perhaps I will throw it up here in the weeks to come.

So, back to Denise, here is one of her poems, followed by links to where you can find others.

WHY BARBIE AND KEN DON'T DRESS IN UNDERWEAR

It is a complicated issue,
Barbie's signature trait of forgoing bra or panties,
whether she's out raking leaves or hostessing a formal party.
She rejects the tee shirt as an alternative
so this time it can't be solely political.
Ken wears his tux, unapologetically, without boxer shorts
underneath. Some speculate it has to do with titillation,
other's say it's because of their inadequate factory upbringing.
Without crotch moistness to ruin clothes, maybe the dolls
figure: Underwear? What's the point? Modest children
make do with Barbie's bikini and Ken's swimming trunks.
Modest adults prefer not to bring the matter up.

Denise's page on Poets.org here.

An unoffical Denise Duhamel page.

Her book Smile! in full here.

A 2005 interview in Rock Salt Plum Review here (includes some poems).

There is a Sound (and She is Eleven)

Last year on this date I posted about aging, and how a daughter turning ten made me feel old. Older than turning 39 or 40 or whatever. Well, today she is 11.

Eleven.

A decade and a year.

Egads.

Last year's post (here) included a poem I had written for Jolee when she was born. Here's another I may or may not have shared before:

THERE IS A SOUND

You that come to birth and bring the mysteries,

Your voice-thunder makes us very happy.

-Jelaluddin Rumi

There is a sound

at 2 a.m.

and it rings of need.

There is hunger, there is urgency,

there is the definition

of hope.

One voice announces

"I am here"

and there is no denying

she is the one

with my heart

firmly in her

hands.

©1996 William Dickenson Cohen

Happy Birthday Jolee!

Tattoosday #3: BillyBlog Pulls a "Tat Trick"

Welcome to the third installment of "Tattoosday". They get better with age. First a quick recap of the week:

8/7: Interesting tidbit came in the form of a friend (Jill) sending me over to this blog, more specifically this post about the good and bad in a tattoo experience. Interesting read. I posted a comment inviting her to contribute to Tattoosday, if she wanted.

8/10: Rain in the forecast all day. Not the best for tattoo-spotting. In fact, by the end of the day, I realize that this little venture, difficult now, will be next to impossible once the mercury drops below me 60 degrees, 24-7.

8/12: Last Sunday was good to me so I had hope today. At the laundromat, a woman who works at the local bank and who I see occasionally at the laundromat, was sporting a nifty ankle tattoo. Jolee even spotted it and suggested I ask her. Despite many opportunities, I failed to ask. Later in the afternoon, I ran into her again down the block and this time asked her, finally, if she'd be interested in the project. She seemed receptive to the idea and said she'd let me know next time she saw me. She indicated she had designed the piece around her ankle herself.

8/13: (7:00 A.M.) I have decided that today will be the day. I will leave at lunch and find a cool tattoo. I will rely on the students of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) to supply me with the body art. Let's see if I can do it.

[Later that day....]

Ok, BillyBlog-ience, enough of my bellyaching. I just went out, under the deadline, and snagged a tat-trick (I love coining new words). I got not one, not two, but three subjects in less than sixty minutes (and managed to run some errands in the process.

I was walking back from the bank on West 27th Street when I passed a guy standing in the doorway with tons of tattoos. He had a King Tut on his right forearm. I walked past him and then said to myself that he looked pretty cool. I ambled up and said, "Hey, mind if I ask you about your tattoos?" He hesitated for maybe a split second and then said sure. I explained the concept of tattoosday to him and asked if I could take a picture of one of his tattoos. He said sure, and selected the one on his left leg.



He selected that one because it represented New York City and is one of his more recent pieces. It reads "Too Tough To Die," features a skull, and the New York skyline peeking up out of his sock.



I asked him how many tattoos he had and he didn't know. He has two full sleeves, tats on both legs, and he said on his chest and back as well. The tattoo I photographed, he said was an homage to the Ramones, from their 1984 album of the same name.


He gave his name as "Tops," and although he didn't disclose more about where he had the art done, he did look at one of the previous tattoosday posts and said he knew the owner of New York Hardcore Tattoos.

Well I was pretty proud of myself for finally jumping in the pool. Even though I didn't know James from last week, we had seen each other around and were familiar with one another. Tops was the first complete and utter stranger I approached. I was proud of myself for finally getting someone for Tattoosday.

Perhaps because the pressure was off, I walked with a lighter load. I headed back to 7th Avenue and decided to walk through F.I.T. over to 8th Avenue. Perhaps I would encounter some artistic student who would be approachable.

Sure enough, halfway down the block I saw a young lady approaching with two tattooed arms. I used the same approach, and mentioned BillyBlog. She gently kidded (I think gently, and I think she was kidding) about me asking her to be on my "nerdy blog". I have to remind myself that I am forty and your average F.I.T. student is in their early 20s, at the oldest.

Anyway, Jackie Alvo didn't mind giving me her real name, nor did she mind letting me snap shots of both arms. I found some of her design work here.

I noticed the cherry blossoms on her left arm first and she indicated that all her work was done on Long island because that's where "all the best artists are".



Her right arm, she joked, had to have a fashion theme, because she was at F.I.T. As cool as her left arm was, the dressmaker's form and other aspects were highly original and quite impressive. She let me know that her work was done at Timmy Tattoo in Huntington, NY (on MySpace here).



I thank her for her contribution and later saw her zip away on a bright metallic blue Vespa scooter.

The third tattoo was a bit of a surprise. I was in the plaza in front of the Borders at Madison Square Garden when I saw a woman with the following gecko tattoo above her left ankle.


She preferred to remain anonymous, but she is the first tourist tattoo on BillyBlog. The gecko design, which she searched for for years, has no specific significance. She just wanted a gecko tattoo. The piece was inked at Atomic Buddha Tattoos in Greeley, Colorado, from which our tourist hailed. Well, Colorado for sure, not necessarily Greeley.

We talked about geckoes a bit, especially the fact that, growing up in Hawai'i, I had them in and out of the homes I lived in. Shayna, coincidentally, just got a rubber gecko from a science museum last week. It went through the laundry on Sunday and she flung it at the ceiling last night and it stayed there until I pulled it down.

Thanks to the folks who let me take the pictures. Tops, I don't think, will be checking out the blog, but Jackie said she'd google BillyBlog and I gave a printout to our friend from Colorado. Please, feel free to add comments, questions, anecdotes, whatever. Or e-mail me if I need to clarify or edit any of the facts from my brief encounters with you.

Ah, the Good Ol' Days!

My Aunt Lee dropped these my way a few weeks back, and they have been sitting on my desktop, just waiting to be posted. Worth some chuckles.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Hoch! Hach! Hecchhhhh!


"To Put a Smile in Your Smoking" ....... (and spots on your lungs!)

~~~~

See, honey?! All those times at Mayfair Market in Eagle Rock when I tried to put the 10-pound tin of lard in our cart, I was looking out for our own good!

~~~~

And more Camels smoked Doctors than any other cigarette!

~~~~

Ho! Ho! Ho!

~~~~

Next up.....the revolutionary pull tab!

~~~~

Yum! And if that doesn't work, try a jar full of leeches!

~~~~

No Comment. Really.

Last Week in The New Yoker........

......a wild story by Hari Kunzru called "Magda Mandela".

Blogging By Proxy

So, Dear Old Dad has his own blog here, but Mom, across the Pacific, hasn't entered the blogosphere. However, she sent me a picture that I feel like sharing.


The picture comes with a description:

View to Halemaumau Crater
Hiked with Ka Hele Wawae Hui
August 12, 2007

Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park is one of the most hauntingly beautiful places in the world. We were last there in 2005. Seeing this photo made me a tad "homesick" for the Islands. Mahalo, Ma!

Sunday Post Has Gone to the Birds

Kerouac Reads from On the Road

I read On the Road and liked it. Didn't adore it to pieces, but still recognized it as innovative, brilliant at times, and an important book, published 50 years ago this month. Paper Cuts dropped this clip and I just had to appropriate it.

Friday Five

It's been a while since I threw out a Friday Five, so here we go. Play along at home, if you like. For those of you new to this, here are five songs on my BilliPod, shuffled randomly:

1) "Severed Hand" by Pearl Jam, from their performance on Saturday Night Live on April 15, 2006.



If there was any doubt that their upcoming album was going to rock, it was dispelled when they premiered this on SNL, much to the surprise of many, as they had been expected to play "Life Wasted," which they had done on the rehearsal show, along with "World Wide Suicide".

2) "Nipples" by Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse.

One of the greatest songs ever written about the human breasts.

Listen to it here (JHC & TFHotA's MySpace page)

3) "Breath" by Pearl Jam, live at Madison Square Garden, September 11, 1998.

Click here to see the back story behind this particular performance.

4) "Accidents Will Happen" by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. Watch him performing it from 1979:



5) "Back of My Hand" by The Rolling Stones from their last album A Bigger Bang. This song oozes the Blues, and could just as well have been performed twenty years ago.



The Stones performing it at Madison Square Garden in 2005:

The Horror!

So, I just read "The Confidence Decoy" by Ann Beattie in the November 27, 2006 issue of The New Yorker. I went to link it because it was pretty darn good and I saw this:

Could it be? The New Yorker doesn't make the published stories available in perpetuity? Egads! What's a procrastinating blogger to do?

Sulk, I guess.

They Come in Pairs....

Those Poetry in Motion posters, they do. Earlier today I posted the Whitman. Here is the other one New Yorkers will be reading for the next few months:

"Tell All the Truth..."

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind-

--Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)

New Poetry in Motion Poster on the N Train

TO YOU

STRANGER! If you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me,

why should you not speak to me?

And why should I not speak to you?

-----Walt Whitman

The Poetry Foundation has a great article on the Poetry in Motion series up on their website here.

Listen: "Just Beyond the Fare Boxes" (mp3), a short (6-7 minute) podcast about the series in New York, and commuters read and respond to the two poems that have been posted all Summer, Auden's "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" and Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" (excerpt).

Still Plowing Through Back Issues of The New Yorker

Read "Playdate" by Kate Walbert in the March 26, 2007 issue. A good New York parenting story.

Also, somehow ended up with the November 27, 2006 issue. Reading Roger Angell's recap of the 2006 baseball season. Angell always writes brilliantly about baseball. The abstract is here. However, the following is worth typing out, for a fun look back:

[Barry Bonds], barring injury, should catch up with Hank Aaron's all-time seven hundred and fifty-five along about next Labor Day, while playing as a designated hitter for some American League team. He has just become a free agent, and the Giants, who may wish to change the subject and also free up the vast clubhouse square footage given to Bonds's luxury-suite appointments, will not try hard to bring him back.

Uh, not quite. Nice try, though.

I Don't Know How This Glass Was Broken

There are mysteries in life that some of us will never solve. I found this on the subway platform at East 68th Street on the 6 line last week on a sweltering Thursday evening.


At first, it looks like any other discarded vestige of a quick trip to the CVS Drug Store.

What'd we buy? Well, Edy's Dibs,



Häagen-Dazs vanilla,



and a National Enquirer.



Who would have thought that the Enquirer cost so much?


But the real fun comes by looking at the reverse side:



To be honest, after hours of analysis, the top message is cryptic and really not that interesting:

si suits

pens
Thank You Barbara
xoxo

Pooneh

clothes
cloth
cloht
clote

The real gem here is the note on the bottom of the back of the receipt:


Talk about two random bits of information jammed together:

Dear Pooneh---

This glass came out from
dishwasher like that,
I don't know if it was
broken before.
My daughter thanks
you very, very much
for the suits
all are perfect

How did the glass break? Is it a bad dishwasher? Or maybe Pooneh broke the glass and didn't realize it was broken. Or maybe Barbara's daughter broke it because she didn't really like the suits Pooneh bought her and she was sublimating her rage by destroying Pooneh's property.

I guess we'll never know. Unless Barbara or Pooneh google "Pooneh" and find this post. But we shouldn't collectively hold our breaths on that one.

A-Ok in NYC

Of course I haven't tried to get home yet.....

But at 5:30 am I was woken up by a spectacular display of thunder and lightning. I was due up in 5 minutes anyway, and when I left the apartment at 10 after 6, I might as well not have had an umbrella, as I was drenched by the time I got to the subway a block and a half away.

My R train left as scheduled and caught an N at 59th Street. My commute was positively normal. Had I left 15 minutes later, however, I would have been most likely delayed significantly.

Bay Ridge is in the news because we sustained some damage, although not in my neighborhood, but close to 30 blocks away, from what I can tell. The winds that ravaged the borough must have passed through after I hopped on the train. Here's a shot from the hood:


I had little trouble at lunch when I took the train down to Trader Joe's in Union Square for salsa re-stocking.

Yet, many people had problems with buses (which I rarely take)

the shot above is from in front of 7 Penn Plaza, where I work. People are standing two lanes out in traffic jockeying for best bus-boarding position to avoid this:



and apparently the subways looked more like this


than what I had (seated all the way in....).

Update: Took an extra thirty minutes to get home. Grrrr. Could be much worse.

And The New York Times is reporting:

According to the National Weather Service, the tornado produced winds reaching speeds of 113 to 135 miles per hour. It touched down in Bay Ridge just after 6:30 a.m. and traveled northeast, damaging homes and tearing the roof off a Nissan car dealership before dissipating.

The tornado forced the evacuation of 20 buildings, leaving 32 families without shelter, the city buildings department said. Another 50 buildings experienced some damage.

Fortunately, these damages occurred down in the 60s and we live on 92nd Street....and at 6:30 a.m. I was safely underground rolling toward Manhattan.

Colony Collapse Disorder

There's been a lot of buzz since the beginning of the year about the problem beekeepers are having with a mysterious "colony collapse disorder" that is decimating bee hives in certain segments of the United States. The August 6 issue of The New Yorker has a good article by staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert here.

Also read an interesting fiction piece here by Daniil Kharms, a Russian writer who died during the Siege of Leningrad. It's short and worth a peek.

Movie Review: In Her Shoes

I started this in June, and it was left unfinished. So, two months later, let me try and wrap this up. In fact, it seems fitting to run it on Poetry Wednesday.


What? A movie review of a film that was released a year and a half ago? Sure, why not? It was on the DVR for a few months until we finally watched it, in this vast wasteland after the regular television season ended and the Summer reality/replacements begin in earnest.

In all honesty, I was expecting a goofy chick flick with little to offer me intellectually. Hey, nothing wrong with that, sometimes those are just what the body needs, a little mindless entertainment.



But what we got was a very compelling story with quality performances from all of the stars, including the much-maligned Cameron Diaz.


The film is based on the smash-success novel by Jennifer Weiner, one of the pioneers of the "chick-lit" revolution in the late 90's/early '00s. Do note, the "chick-lit" marketing machine was exactly that, a craze created by publishers to sell books. That's why so many books in the genre were designed with covers that seemed so similar--like an Easter basket exploded.



So, many may say, "Yeah, sure you liked this movie. Cameron Diaz afforded plenty of fascinating scenery!"


But, what locked me in was a scene mid-way through the film, a turning point, where Diaz's character meets an old man dying in the hospital and he has her read to him, starting with one of the best poems ever written in the English language, Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art":

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

And then, later in the film, they drop a poem by e.e. cummings. Is it any wonder why I liked this film?

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's a touching film with a wonderful use of poetry. I recommend it.

Brush with Greatness

Just passed Tyra Banks on the street, walking with her security detail. I thought about approaching her to ask if she wanted to feel my breasts, but I was distracted by the fact that her legs were longer than my entire being.

Tattoosday #2: Dragons and Gargoyles

7/31: Last Tattoosday, the inaugural day, was a bust. First exhibitor Sephora was thrilled with her initial post and suggested I add some of her other tattoos to the post. We agreed to do so.

I looked, but found no worthy candidates. A woman in Starbucks had a tribal tramp stamp lower back tattoo peeking from the chasm between the bottom of her short shirt and her low-rise jeans. It wasn't very impressive and I'm not comfortable asking a strange woman to move clothing in order to photograph her ink. Co-worker Ian, when I told him of this later feature, said I should rename it "Tramp Stamp Tuesdays" instead. He said he would be more likely to come visit the blog. I agreed it would surely attract more viewers, but I don't see it as very positive.

8/1: Spotted a cool anime shoulder tattoo on a passenger on the A train. Alas, I was getting off at the next stop, so time was a factor, and the opportunity passed.

By 4:30, , it looked like the day was going to be a bust. So, I settled. I took an opportunity in the public domain. This person did not know I took their picture. One thing about New York, a camera doesn't necessarily make you conspicuous.



A closer look reveals a simple black tattoo that jumps off the flesh:

A cool design with the star in the center of a different star.

8/2: A promising day ended with a thud. A couple on the train were chatting, and the male, young in his twenties, seemingly a nice guy, had a very interesting piece on his right biceps, but I couldn't figure out what it was. They were deep in conversation and I didn't want to interrupt, when they abruptly got up and exited at the Prospect Avenue stop.

I did however, get a clearer picture of Sephora's om (go back to last Tuesday to see), along with her swastika on the back of her neck.

Came to the realization that stories of people telling me they don't want to participate will likely be more interesting than stories of me thinking about talking to an inked person, and then not following through.

8/3: No luck today, despite temperatures in the 90's. Not even any close calls!

8/4: Ditto. Even stepped into Body Art Studios, our local tattoo shop, but asking the guys that work there to participate seems a little bit like cheating, no? This is harder than I thought.

8/5: Sunday. I have a positive feeling I might find someone at the laundromat. Just a hunch.

Success at last!

At the laundromat, I saw a guy who I have seen in the neighborhood for years, and he had a gargoyle tattooed on his upper arm. His son was talking with my girls and, as it turned out, he is a year behind Shayna in the gifted and talented program at P.S. 104, so they have had the same teachers each year. I broached the subject about his tattoo, mentioned my "Tattoosday" project and asked him if he wouldn't mind telling me about it. He agreed and when I asked if I could take a photo of it, he said, "Sure, but it's big." He then pulled the sleeve of his shirt up to show me how it went up his shoulder and across over his armpit.

He then said he had another one, and turned around and showed me the one below his neck:


This one was his first tattoo, that he got about 12-13 years ago. Originally from Guyana, he explained that he understands it to be a Native American birth sign and also represents the water sign for Pisces. The artist was known as "Fallen Angel."

About the other, larger tattoo, it's actually a combination of three works that were done by an artist named Carmine based on three separate covers of Metal Edge magazine, or he, said, a magazine similar to Metal Edge. His wife at the time subscribed to the publication and they really liked the designs.


He indicated that the dragon over the armpit was extremely time-consuming, as there had been a lot of pain and sensitivity in that area.


I told James that the piece I first saw on him reminded me of the demon on the cover of one of Metallica's early singles, "Jump in the Fire".

He was quick to point out that what he had was not a demon (I guess his mother thought it was, as well), but a gargoyle which, he explained, are viewed as symbols of protection. They serve a design purpose as well, as water spouts, moving water away from the edifice.


He is particularly happy with the way the eyes glow:


We had a lengthy discussion about tattoos and how he initially would have gone further down the arm but, at the time, he was in school and considered studying biology, that he did not think it would have been a good idea, considering a potential career in medicine, to have the tattoo visible below the elbow. Of course, plans change, and James changed his career path and became an electrician, and is now a member of the I.B.E.W.

What I also found interesting was that none of this work was done at a shop, but was done at the artists' apartments. James explained that the rules regarding tattooing in New York State were different over ten years ago, offering greater flexibility for artists working out of their homes.

It was very cool talking tattoos with someone new. Later that day, I complimented a woman in line at Rite Aid and would have loved to snap her tattoos as well, but she was in a hurry, thanking me for the thoughts before exiting the store.

8/6: Nothing to report today. But a first week of tattoo-spotting was at least not a total wash, thanks to James. I'm hoping the relative success of getting my first person to offer up their tattoos for BillyBlog will make things easier in the future. James seemed to really like sharing his stories.

Thanks again to James and Sephora from last week for helping launch this feature on BillyBlog!