Elinor Nauen

It's been summer so long that I didn't really expect we would have much snow today, or snow that stuck. But hallelujah!

I'd be happier if my teeth weren't falling out of my head but the snow makes up for it, pretty much.

I'm glad to be home but part of me stays in Spartanburg. I suppose because not much seems to change there, it always feels like I was just there and/or am still there. I know many people besides Steve & I like feeling welcomed into the community. Although I have to say, it was shocking to hear people's childhood stories about segregated drinking fountains (etcetera). Was Sioux Falls really as bland as I remember, or is it because it was 99% white, so we didn't have to have Jim Crow. We would have—no reason to think we were any better, just different in our circumstances.  Read More 

Conversation

Four talked about baseball. One quoted stats, streaks, and dynasties. One considered the effect of stadium construction on local communities. One slapped on a mustache & reenacted "Casey at the Bat." One picked up a bat and hit the ball out of the park.

(after Dan Pagis)

We are all writing God's poem.
~ Anne Sexton

If today is God's poem, God was definitely challenging Noah. My goodness, how it rained!

WWI ended 100 years ago today. My mother was born a few years later, as I was born a few years after WWII. Does WWI seem almost present, as WWII does to me? Does Tara, born 6 or 7 years after Vietnam, feel like it's almost in memory, almost connected to her? And so it goes—the wars of our lifetimes, the wars of our parents' lifetimes, the wars so distantly past that it's hard to believe real people suffered and died.

Dinner with two Vietnam-era vets. Forrister says it was his job, no reason to thank him. Willis says he didn't want to be there or do that, less than no reason to mention it. Well, half-off at the restaurant seemed reason enough to me.  Read More 

Water Heron Rock

Rock standing still
looks no closer
than water rushing
over

a great blue heron
intent on dinner
ignoring our desire
that it spread

shadow wing
over
mushy leaves
magnificent

mill ruin
dog path
Carolina wedge
of not-quite-cloudy sky

I remember as a very little kid having a Swamp Fox coloring book—I don't think I knew where South Carolina was or what was there, but I felt its allure from afar long before I ever visited.

Today we walked along Lawson's Fork, a pretty fast-moving creek that hooks into the Pacolet River. There are the ruins of mills, a labyrinth created by the Wofford College philosophy program, benches where we sat quietly & listened to the water. The dogs ran.  Read More 

So happy to be back—always as though no time has passed. The garden is a little more stately, the dogs are a little less frisky, Steve has a new car... life goes on but the essence is as it has been since I first came here in 1971. I had never been South before, never seen houses in the woods, or mills, or azaleas, or hushpuppies, or...... I fell in love & stayed there.  Read More 

"That was not only Wayne's first cigarette, it was his last. Praise God almighty!" says Ron.

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
~ Mary Wollstonecraft

Is that true or a naive wish? Does it make any difference in the effect of those choices? Right now it is hard not to believe the "alt-right" haters are, well, evil, and want to be evil. They mistake murder for protecting their way of life? What way of life is worth murder?  Read More 

I just watched The Dead, read Joyce's story, then watched the film again. Fascinating to see how much was identical & how much differed. I feel like it's a movie that mostly poets love, like Paterson. I loved hearing the Irish accents of Johnny's mother in some of the characters & feel bad that in our early days I mocked him (he still mocks me for the way I can't say roof) for his inheritance of saying many words without the "h"—he said "true" for "through" and "everyting" when I first knew him but mostly got rid of that. It slips out sometimes & I think from now on it will always make me tink of snow falling on all the living and the dead.  Read More 

This is cool. I'm throwing you right to Mental Floss:

Thanks to Merriam-Webster’s online “Time Traveler” tool, it’s now easier than ever to look back at a particular year or century and see which words were recorded for the very first time. For instance, you can select your birth year Read More 

My hobbies are smoking marijuana & rescuing stray cats.

Never was crazy about her sculptures but this drawing is terrific. The picture is b&w, mostly black. (The blue is a reflection from a window behind me.)

Not connected, but VOTE. We have a week to make it happen.

As I was saying, I'm out of sorts, my thin so skin anyone can look in (if they want to see me). So today I'm irked by this:

I've noticed a few people, in response to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, say something like  Read More 

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
~ Isaac Asimov

I'm trying to be good-humored about being given unsolicited (& non-relevant) advice. It's amazing that people you barely know feel free to tell you what they decide is your problem (in this case inaccurately) & what you "should"  Read More 

No matter how messed up everything is—& it is—I feel better when I watch Buster sleep, eat, run like a madman through the house, stare at invisible mice, rough up his catnip toys, purr the minute food hoves into sight. Today was a good day for having Buster in my life. (And others! Johnny, for one, has an entirely different set of adorable activities.) Read More 

It's just one little tooth.
Why does he have to drill 99 holes in my head?
It's not a root canal.
Why am I so exhausted?

Last night's full moon (& Jadina's gorgeous photo) made me think of going to see Joan Baez at the outdoor amphitheater Red Rocks in Denver in I'm guessing 1972. I think we went because we'd heard Bob Dylan was going to show up as much as to see her. I remember her laughing about having been a soprano, & it's true her voice had settled a little by then (she was all of 31). Each row in turn gasped as the giant full moon rose behind her, until she stopped & asked what was going on.

Bob Dylan didn't show.

The only other time I went to Red Rocks was to see the teenage guru Maharaj Ji. For fun & out of curiosity. Someone I met later was envious & said that once I'd been in his presence, I would eventually accept him as my guru. Still waitin'.  Read More 

One of my favorites of the dozen—dozens?—we have in our house of the great artist Joe Brainard. It's fun to have people come over to look at them because then I look at them again. Johnny just put up another 2 or 3, which is also fun.

Suddenly I love art again.

If you're willing to fail interestingly, you're likely to succeed interestingly.
~ Edward Albee

Part of what I liked about the Pioneer Valley Poetry Festival this weekend was how experimental the poets were, in their own ways & in many directions. No one played it safe & for the most part I think you could say that they succeeded interestingly.

Also, many conversations, new friends & Ed Foster's tender care made it a wonderful time.  Read More 

"Don't worry: everything is going to be amazing" is what the sign says.

I'm off to Amherst, MA, for a few days to listen to & read poetry & get to know the Pioneer Valley.

This was near Bowery and 6th St. It looks like it's been there a while but I don't remember noticing it before, & I certainly never took a picture. I especially like the stamped fish.

It would be fun if people could pay for random useful signs like this—a little money-maker for the city & a little ego tickle to see your name in bronze.  Read More 

The marvel is that they are on the steps of a West 10th Street brownstone & haven't been stolen or vandalized.

My day started with karate at 7:30 then included coffee with a friend from out of town & more coffee with a different friend from out of town. While they don't know each other, they live near one another in northern California. There were lots of walks & stops throughout the day but I'm beat & am going to withhold information. By tomorrow I'll have forgotten all of it, except for this photo.  Read More 

The conventional view saves us from the painful job of thinking.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith

It sure was less work when I merely went along with my friends on issues: "Everyone agrees on XX so I do too." It has taken an enormous amount of educating myself to develop my own thoughts & opinions on things. Sometimes—often—I end up  Read More 

We bought a new mattress—here's the old one on its way out. The new one is foam, which is a little disconcerting because there's so much give—until you settle in & then you feel totally supported. Yay for home improvements.

I found this in an envelope but have no idea how I (Johnny?) acquired it. He thinks it may have been a premium from the Poetry Project but I don't think so. I do kind of feel like it did have something to do with the Project but I don't know what. Most people who have seen it have thought it's by the British sculptor Anthony Caro. It does look like his work but I have never seen anything on paper like this from him. It's an original, which you maybe can't tell from the photo, a collage of bits of colored paper, and signed.  Read More 

22 poets, 65 minutes of Bill Kushner's poems & good-humored presence last night at the Poetry Project. Kudos to Peter Bushyeager, Ed Foster, and Lewis Warsh for a lovely selected, Wake Me When It's Over.

An underrated poet: why? Because of his friendliness & modesty? Who has written anything better than "My Father's Death"?

What we as a country need is something totally outside politics that we can all agree on or at least get behind: a scrappy racehorse, the World Series, a baby in a well. Those have done it in the past but there doesn't seem to be even a possibility of it these days.

Abetta has been here longer than I have—for a month or a hundred years, I don't know.

But it was easy to find out: Established 1929. Date in Location 1949.

I don't think I know one single person who works there by sight. When I was young, you didn't walk on First Street, & if you did, they were the guys who would hoot & holler. So I got in the habit of never glancing their way, & even though I'm invisible now, I still don't. They were possibly the only business on the block, aside from the Catholic Worker & a lot of people selling heroin. I used to think everyone on my block worked at night because there were guys hanging out all day, playing bocce (that area is now a semi-fancy park). I used to think all those teenage girls were obliging babysitters.  Read More